Chapter 10
The hallway smelled like lemon cleaner and cold coffee. Marcus had left the break room door open a few inches, and I could hear the soft hum of the air handler and his low voice down the corridor talking to someone on the phone. I sat with my hands around the second coffee he'd handed me, even though I hadn't drunk much of it. My statement was folded in my bag, creased where I'd pressed it hard with my palm the night before.
At exactly eight, Dave came down the back stairs holding a laptop. He didn't look at me right away. He set it on the break table, opened it, and the screen lit up his face blue-white.
"HR's on their way," he said to Marcus. "They wanted this pulled before anyone talks again."
Marcus nodded. "Show us the window. Fourteen fifty-five to fifteen fifteen."
Dave typed. The video player was plain, gray, with a time stamp in the corner. LOCATION_X looked different from above. The glossy black marble table was a dark mirror. The white veins cut across it, and the overhead spots made a bright pool right where I'd been sleeping. At 14:55 the table was empty. The white cleaning cloth was folded at the edge. The silver terminal sat dark at the far corner.
"Speed it up a little?" Marcus said.
Dave tapped the fast-forward. The time stamp ticked. At 14:58 I walked into frame. I saw myself and felt my face get hot. I was in the maid uniform, hair pulled back, moving slow. I wiped the table in circles, then folded the cloth, then leaned. At 15:00 I was told to keep working - but on camera I saw what he'd seen. My head dropped. My shoulders caved. I folded my arms and put my head down right there on the marble. The cloth got trapped under my arm. I didn't move again.
"That's 15:00 flat," Dave said quietly.
We watched. I breathed shallow on screen. My eyes stayed closed. At 15:03 a figure came in from the side hall. Not me. A man in a dark shirt with sleeves pushed up. The floor supervisor. He carried a single white sheet of paper - the schedule - and the silver terminal wasn't in his hands yet. He looked over his shoulder once, then set the paper down on the marble next to my arm.
Marcus's jaw tightened. He didn't say anything.
On camera, the supervisor pulled the terminal closer. He typed. The display glowed. At 15:07:12 the time stamp clicked and his finger came down hard on the green button. The terminal flashed APPROVED. The paper under his hand was the one headed MAYA COLLINS, and even from the ceiling camera you could see the yellow highlighter bleeding through where he'd marked 15:00 and 15:07.
"He used 4472," Dave said, reading the log line that had popped up next to the video. "CODE 4472 GREEN. TERM-02. Local. No remote."
"Again," Marcus said.
Dave rewound ten seconds and played it at normal speed. This time I heard the faint click even through the laptop speakers. The supervisor pressed green, glanced at me still asleep, then slid the schedule just under my forearm so it looked like I'd been holding it, and walked out. At 15:09 the bodyguards and Marcus entered the frame - the exact wide shot from the afternoon before. Same table, same light, same me not waking up.
I realized I was holding my breath. I let it out. My hands were shaking around the coffee cup.
"That's three nights?" I asked, my voice small.
Dave opened another file. "Same time stamp. 15:07. Three nights in a row. Same terminal, same code, same hand. He waited until you were out or almost out. You were in the other room at 14:52 on the second night, so he did it with you not even there."
Marcus finally looked at me. "You didn't touch that terminal at all."
"No," I said. "I never had the code. He told me Miss Olivia had approved the extra coverage. I thought - I thought she was working remote from New York."
"She was on a sales trip. In New York for a week. No logins," Marcus said. He said it the same way he'd said it yesterday, but now it landed different. "He borrowed her code because hers doesn't need a second approval after three p.m."
Dave closed the laptop halfway. "You want me to call HR up now or bring him down here?"
"Bring him to the conference room," Marcus said. "Not here. Don't tip him." He turned to me. "Maya, you stay here until HR asks for you. No hallway talk. Okay?"
May you like
I nodded. The screen had gone black, but I could still see my head on my arms, still see that hand pressing green while I didn't move. For three nights someone had stood that close and I hadn't woken up because I was too tired to feel it.
Down the hall, a door opened and closed. Heavy shoes came closer.
