Chapter 7
The woman in the gray raincoat ordered tea without looking at us again. Gabriel remained standing until she carried the paper cup toward the hallway beside the restrooms.
“She wants us to follow,” I said.
“She wants you to follow.”
I studied his face. “You’re staying here.”
His jaw tightened once. “If that’s what you want.”
“It is.”
He moved to a table with a clear view of the hallway, close enough to intervene and far enough not to listen. That mattered more than I wanted to admit.
The hallway ended at two restroom doors and a humming vending machine. The woman crouched as if tying her shoe. When I approached, she pushed a thin folder beneath the machine with two fingers.
“I used to work in records,” she said. “Martin Vale had me dismissed six months ago.”
“Why?”
“I asked why his office kept searching employee files after hours.”
My wet coat pulled against my shoulders as I bent. Pain tightened along my injured leg, and I caught the wall before I fell. The woman rose but didn’t touch me.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Dana Ruiz.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“You shouldn’t.” She nodded toward the folder. “Trust the dates.”
Inside were printed access logs. My name appeared in column after column beside searches of personnel records, travel reimbursements, emergency contacts, and building entry history. Some entries went back months. Others were from the night I took the drive.
The authorization field carried a familiar sequence.
MV-4.
“Martin,” I said.
Dana’s eyes flicked toward the coffee shop. “His assistants used the gray-striped foundation badges. Those badges opened areas normal staff credentials couldn’t.”
“Toby mentioned one.”
Her paper cup trembled slightly. “Then Toby saw more than he was supposed to.”
I turned another page. Searches of my records had continued after the organization publicly accused me of theft. Whoever controlled the badge wasn’t gathering facts. They were building a version of me they could use.
“I need the original files,” I said.
“These came from the original system.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No.” Dana took a slow breath. “The full audit was stored in an archive under the old administrative floor. Security video was retained there too.”
“A locked archive.”
Her expression told me Toby’s warning had been exact.
We returned to the seating area separately. Gabriel waited until Dana left before coming to my table.
“What did she want?”
I handed him the folder. He read the first page, then the next. His mouth flattened.
“You knew these searches were possible,” I said.
“I knew authorized compliance staff could run them.”
“These weren’t compliance searches.”
“No.”
He didn’t defend the system. He didn’t tell me there had to be an innocent explanation.
A local news clip began playing silently on the television over the counter. Martin Vale stood at a podium in a dark suit, framed by the foundation’s blue logo. The caption announced a public fundraising event scheduled for the following evening.
Gabriel followed my gaze. “He’ll use that room to make the accusation official.”
“Then we need the footage first.”
He tapped one line on Dana’s printout. The archive index showed a gap on the night I took the drive: forty-seven minutes missing from the exported record.
“That segment could show who followed you,” he said.
“Or who opened the archive.”
“It’s inside a controlled building.”
“So was your office.”
He looked at me for a long moment. “If we go back, we don’t pretend my authority will protect us.”
The words settled between us without comfort.
I folded the logs and slid them inside my torn coat. Until that moment, I’d treated fear like evidence against myself. If I was afraid, maybe I was confused. Maybe I’d misunderstood the payment record, the badge, the footsteps behind me.
May you like
But fear hadn’t printed my name hundreds of times.
“Call the security director,” I said. “Tell him we’re coming.”
