Chapter 6
He came back twenty minutes later with a clipboard.
I had been sitting alone in the break room, listening to the air conditioner hum and trying not to fall asleep again. My body felt heavy, the kind of heavy that made my eyelids want to close even when my heart was racing. I kept my hands wrapped around the paper cup to stay awake, and I stared at the square of glossy black marble I could see through the open door, the same table where I'd collapsed. Someone had folded the white cloth neatly and set it on the edge.
He set the clipboard down in front of me. On it was a white volunteer sign-up sheet, the kind they pinned to the board by the time clock. At the top it said OVERTIME VOLUNTEER - WEEK OF 12th in bold, and below that were ten lines with names and signatures.
"The supervisor said this proves the extra hours were voluntary," he said. He flipped the sheet toward me. "She said you signed up."
I leaned forward. The sheet had names I recognized. Jonah had signed on line two, his block letters clear. A housekeeper named Elena on line three. A few others. The handwriting was varied, some rushed, some neat. My eyes scanned down to line seven.
There was a name written there: Maya Collins. In the same loopy, right-leaning cursive from the schedule. Next to it, a signature that tried to be mine but wasn't. The M was too big, the y didn't loop back. It leaned the wrong way.
I felt a cold prickle up my back.
"That's not my signature," I said. My voice was steadier now. I pointed. "Mine is small. This is not mine. I've never seen this sheet before."
He was watching my face, not the paper.
"I thought so," he said. He took the clipboard back and compared the volunteer sheet side by side with the schedule. Same loopy hand under both. Same slant.
"The sign-up sheet says you volunteered," he said. "The schedule says Olivia approved it. Both use handwriting that isn't yours. Both were on the supervisor's desk."
He pulled a clear plastic sleeve from under the clipboard and slid both papers into it. He handled them by the edges, like evidence.
"Jonah confirmed he printed the blank and left it on her desk," he said. "The terminal log shows the green button was pressed here, in this office, at 15:07 three nights in a row, right after these sheets were filed. Not from New York. Not remotely."
I looked at the silver terminal he had shown me earlier, now sitting on the table in its plastic bag. The green button was dull in the light, but I could picture a finger pressing it, approving hours I hadn't asked for and hadn't signed for.
"Why would she do that?" I asked, half to myself. "We were already short. Why fake a volunteer sheet?"
"Bonus," he said shortly. "If she covers shifts without calling in approved overtime through the agency, she keeps the staffing bonus. If she uses your name and Olivia's code, payroll sees coverage and doesn't flag the gap."
So someone else's code to approve, my name to fill the gap, and a fake signature to make it look voluntary.
He closed the plastic sleeve.
"I'm holding this for IT and HR," he said. "They'll check the prints if needed, but the visual mismatch is enough to stop the approval."
He looked at me and his expression softened for the first time since I'd woken up.
"You didn't volunteer," he said. "You were assigned. You were told Olivia approved it, and you needed the money, so you stayed. That's what I'm going to put in the report."
I nodded. My eyes burned. I hadn't realized I was close to crying until his words made it okay not to pretend.
"Am I in trouble?" I asked quietly.
"No," he said. "But I need you to stay available tomorrow. HR will want a short written statement in your own handwriting, so we have a clean comparison. Just the truth, like you told me."
He stood and collected the sleeve and the terminal.
May you like
"For now," he said, glancing at the clock on the wall. It was past five. "Go home. Actually sleep. Don't answer if she calls you tonight."
He held the break room door open for me. Outside, the office was quiet, the marble table empty and gleaming under the warm overhead spots, and down the hall I could see the supervisor's office door closed, light still on inside, and I knew she was in there waiting to be called in again, probably staring at that same volunteer sheet and realizing the loopy M gave her away.
