Chapter 4: The Baltimore Book
Lena Ortiz’s conference room had no West Enterprises logo on the wall, no screen streaming the company’s stock price, no chair Garrett could assign to someone else. Still, Rosalie felt the absence of her office like a bruise as she spread the papers across the table.
“I can’t get into the company system,” she said. “So we work with what was in the meeting packet.”
Lena leaned over the documents. “And anything you already had.”
The ownership proposal lay beside the bridge notice. Rosalie traced the lines with one finger, matching the collateral language to an appendix Bianca had presented as routine housekeeping. One schedule had been revised to route Blue Horizon receivables through a designated collection account before the offering.
“Who approved this?” Lena asked.
Rosalie studied the page. The approval field was blank. A small notation showed the schedule had been generated late the night before the meeting, though the proposed effective date came earlier.
“That’s not an answer,” Lena said.
“No. It’s evidence somebody was in a hurry.”
The office clock ticked. Tomorrow at five, the note’s deadline would arrive whether the company had finished explaining itself or not.
Lena tapped the schedule. “You said someone was moving project documents.”
“I don’t know what they moved. I know what I can prove from these pages.”
“Then find someone who remembers what came before the pages.”
Rosalie looked down at the old supplier names printed in the appendix. For years, she’d kept their numbers in a battered address book, long after Garrett had insisted everything important lived in the company’s systems.
“I have something at home,” she said.
At her apartment, she opened a desk drawer she rarely touched. The address book sat beneath old stationery, its faded blue cover split at the corners. When she lifted it, a scatter of paper dust clung to her palm.
She didn’t remember the last time she’d opened it. She remembered the book itself: the weight of it in her coat pocket, the narrow pages, the cramped handwriting she used to fit one more name beside another.
Some numbers had gone faint. Others were crossed out and replaced in her younger hand. She turned pages slowly until she found a supplier she recognized: Morrow Industrial Supply.
A woman answered on the fourth ring.
“Morrow.”
“Ms. Bell? It’s Rosalie Bradford.”
Silence, then a breath. “Rosalie. I heard about the meeting.”
The words landed harder than Rosalie expected. “From whom?”
“People talk when the company starts acting like it’s on fire.”
“I’m not asking you to take sides. I need to know whether anyone from West contacted you recently about its early records.”
A pause. “Garrett’s office did.”
Rosalie sat at the desk. “What did they ask for?”
“To sign a statement about how our relationship started.”
“Did they send you a draft?”
“They did.” Ms. Bell’s voice tightened. “It said Garrett had approached us alone and negotiated the first supply arrangement. They wanted me to confirm it as accurate.”
Rosalie kept her hand flat on the open book. “Was it?”
“No.”
The answer was simple. Its cost was not.
“Did they tell you what would happen if you didn’t sign?”
“They reminded me West was one of our largest clients. Then they mentioned that future orders were under review.” Ms. Bell let out a dry, humorless laugh. “Maybe that wasn’t a threat. Maybe they thought I wouldn’t hear one.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I didn’t sign.”
Rosalie closed her eyes briefly. The old book beneath her hand seemed suddenly less like a relic than a record of every person who’d once trusted her to make the next call.
“Would you be willing to tell Lena what you just told me?”
“If she asks me herself, yes. I’m not signing their version of anything.”
“Thank you.”
“Rosalie—whatever they’re trying to make this into, don’t let them put your name on words you didn’t write.”
When the call ended, Rosalie sat without moving. Outside, traffic swept along the avenue, a steady rush that made the room seem smaller.
She returned to Lena’s office with the address book in her bag. Lena listened to the account without interrupting, then wrote Ms. Bell’s name on a clean sheet.
“That supports pressure,” Lena said. “It doesn’t tell us who changed the schedule.”
“No.” Rosalie set the appendix beside the address book. “But someone wants the old record to say Garrett built every relationship himself.”
Lena’s gaze moved to the schedule. “And this one puts Blue Horizon money somewhere else.”
“It puts the money on a different route. That’s all I can say from this page.”
The distinction mattered. Rosalie wouldn’t make a claim she couldn’t stand behind, even if Garrett had never offered her the same care.
She checked the appendix again, following the small entries near the bottom. A name appeared in a field marked “external contact”: Christopher Albright. Beside it was an office address.
Rosalie’s fingertip stopped over the name.
“What?” Lena asked.
“I know him.”
“From Blue Horizon?”
“From before it had a name like that.”
Lena didn’t press. Rosalie was grateful. Some facts weren’t secrets because she’d forgotten them; they were secrets because she’d kept them out of sight for so long that speaking them felt like opening a locked room.
She turned to the address book. The pages rasped against her thumb until she found the Blue Horizon entry. There, beside Christopher Albright’s name, was a direct number in her own slanted handwriting.
“I thought I’d lost this,” she murmured.
“Do you want me to call him?”
“No. I want to hear what he says when he knows I’m the one asking.”
The address on the schedule brought her to a Midtown building where the lobby lights had been dimmed for the evening. Upstairs, the directory still listed Albright’s office, but the glass beyond the reception desk was dark.
May you like
Rosalie stood in the quiet hall with the address book open in her hands. The number beside Christopher’s name had survived years of being forgotten, just as her handwriting had.
She lifted her phone and began to dial.
