The Vacancy

Part I
Rhona Milne is missing. Her replacement has already arrived.

During a critical North Sea energy tender, a senior procurement manager disappears from the Aberdeen headquarters of Paleo Last Energy Resources.

Her laptop is recovered from a railway-station locker.

Her access pass is found beside a failed security camera.

Her blood appears among the evidence.

And Mara Vane, the specialist recruited to succeed her, discovers that the vacancy was planned before Rhona left.
As the police investigation closes around her, Mara uncovers manipulated supplier scores, persistent system access, false identities and a corporate experiment built from a method she created years ago.

A method with one question at its heart:

What becomes possible only after a person leaves?

Someone has turned that question into a weapon.

Now every disappearance creates an opportunity. Every record carries an agenda. And every person trying to expose the truth risks becoming the next vacancy.

Because the real mystery is not where Rhona went.

It is who had already decided what her disappearance would mean.



Legal Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All the names, characters, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual individuals, living or dead, or actual events or institutions is purely coincidental.