Chapter 7: The Signature She Never Made
Grant’s email stayed open on Tessa’s monitor, his sentence sitting beneath his name like a verdict.
Evelyn’s signed approval will be placed before the board.
“Then let’s see when I supposedly signed it,” I said.
Tessa moved aside. I opened the attachment on the lab computer, not my phone. The scanned form looked official enough to fool someone skimming it: my old title, my former project code, my name drawn in a close imitation of my signature.
Julian stood behind us, silent.
I enlarged the audit panel at the bottom. The authorization had been entered into the company system at 2:16 p.m. on June 18.
My hands went still.
“What?” Tessa asked.
“June eighteenth was after my project handover.”
I pulled my own archive from the locked cabinet—paper records I had kept because clean data was only useful if someone could prove where it came from. My departure checklist was clipped to the front. Final handover: June 3. System access returned: June 4. The dates had been countersigned.
Tessa leaned close to the form. “So the approval was entered two weeks after you were off the project.”
“And after I’d surrendered my access.” I looked at Julian. “I couldn’t have approved a change in a system I was no longer allowed to enter.”
His face tightened, but he didn’t rush to reassure me or declare the case solved.
“Can you preserve both records?” he asked.
“I can preserve my records. The company’s audit trail is another question.”
Tessa photographed each page beside the screen, then saved a copy to the lab’s encrypted drive. The room smelled of warm dust and toner. Outside the narrow windows, Chicago’s afternoon had gone the color of wet concrete.
Tessa opened a second folder on her laptop.
“There’s something else. The facility diagram you asked me to find.”
She brought up an archived plan, its lines faded from years of storage. The original ductwork ran along the pilot building’s east side. A later revision added the reroute—thin new lines in a different shade, a note in the margin, and a revision date.
June 21.
Three days after the supposed approval was entered. More than two weeks after my handover.
Tessa traced the added line with one finger. “This wasn’t in the version you left.”
“No.”
The duct ended in the direction of Parker Elementary. The diagram didn’t tell us what moved through it, or whether it was connected to an operating system. It only showed that someone had changed the plan after I was gone.
Julian pulled a chair toward the table. “I can check who accessed the executive credentials around the time the form was entered.”
He opened his company access portal. I watched him read through the records, his jaw setting as each screen loaded. The first entries were routine. Then he stopped.
“What is it?” I asked.
“A delegated session through my office credentials.” He scrolled back, then forward again. “It was opened from Grant’s office.”
Tessa’s eyes flicked to his. “By Grant?”
“The log identifies the office administrator’s account. It shows that account had access to my credentials.”
Julian leaned back, staring at the screen. “That is not proof the administrator knew what the credentials would be used for.”
The distinction mattered. I could hear how badly he wanted someone to blame—and how hard he was trying not to turn access into guilt.
“What can you prove?” I asked.
“That the session came through Grant’s office. And that someone there could use my credentials.” He shut the laptop halfway, then opened it again. “I’ll request the full access record. From the company’s independent security team, not Grant.”
“Don’t warn him first,” Tessa said.
“I won’t.”
A phone rang on Tessa’s desk. She glanced at the screen and answered.
“This is Tessa Park.”
She listened, her expression changing. Then she turned the phone toward me.
“It’s Parker Elementary,” she said. “The custodian asked to speak with you.”
I took it.
“Ms. Vance? This is Mr. Bell. I’m the custodian at the school. I saw something by the ventilation intake on the service side.”
My fingers tightened around the phone. “What did you see?”
“A case, maybe a foot wide. I’ve never seen it there before. It has wires or straps along the back. I didn’t touch it.”
My first thought was of the children who’d be walking past it. My second was of all the families who had no idea it was there.
“Is it inside the building?”
“Outside, near the intake. I called the office, and they said they’d check the camera feed. But the recording’s gone from the security console. The clip was there, and then it wasn’t.”
The room seemed to draw in around me.
“Did you get a picture?”
“I took one on my phone as soon as I saw it. I’m sending it now.”
A message chimed on Tessa’s desk. She opened the photo and turned the screen toward me.
May you like
For one suspended second, I saw only the brick wall and the metal intake grille. Then the small case registered beside it—black, hard-sided, and marked with the clean-energy company’s familiar logo.
A single warning light glowed on its face.
