Chapter 8
By late afternoon, the rain had thinned to a cold mist. Gabriel drove us to the foundation’s older administrative building, a low concrete structure attached to the base of the tower by a glass walkway.
Before we got out, he looked at my stained trousers and torn coat.
“There’s a first-aid kit in the trunk.”
“I already wrapped the cut.”
“I’m not asking to inspect it.”
That made me look at him.
He rested both hands on the steering wheel. “I’m asking whether you can walk in there.”
“Yes.”
“Then we walk in.”
Security Director Leonard Shaw met us in a windowless conference room. He was broad, gray-haired, and careful with his hands, arranging a legal pad square with the table before he spoke.
“The board instructed me to retrieve all foundation property,” he said. “That includes the drive and any copies.”
“The board knows about the drive?” I asked.
“It knows Ms. Monroe removed restricted material.”
Gabriel placed Dana’s printed logs on the table. “Explain these searches.”
Shaw glanced at the first page and pushed it back. “Printouts aren’t evidence.”
“They include system verification strings.”
“They could still be altered.”
“Then open the archive.”
For the first time, Shaw’s eyes shifted toward the closed door. “The archive is unavailable.”
“Unavailable,” I repeated, “or locked?”
His silence answered.
Gabriel stood. Shaw stood with him.
“If you access that system without board approval,” Shaw said, “you’ll be acting outside your authority.”
“My authority requires me to preserve evidence of internal misconduct.”
“Your authority was suspended this morning.”
The statement struck harder than its volume warranted. Gabriel’s expression barely changed, but his hand stopped beside the folder.
Shaw slid an envelope across the table. Gabriel opened it and read the first page.
“You knew?” I asked.
“No.”
Shaw’s voice softened, almost regretful. “Give me the drive. Both of you leave. Let counsel handle the rest.”
I thought of the message on my phone and the man who had known my name outside Gabriel’s office.
“Your process sent someone to collect us before we’d reported anything,” I said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That’s the problem.”
Gabriel set the suspension notice down. “Take us to the archive.”
Shaw refused. Gabriel walked out anyway.
We found the lower level by following old directory signs past a storage room and a row of dark offices. At the bottom of a concrete stairwell, an electronic reader blinked red beside a steel door.
Gabriel held his badge against it. Red again.
I photographed the reader, the door number, and a scraped rectangle where a second device had once been mounted.
A custodian pushing a supply cart paused near us. “That camera’s been down all week,” he said, nodding toward the ceiling.
“Who reported it?” I asked.
“Everybody.”
Footsteps sounded in the stairwell. Shaw appeared with two uniformed guards.
Gabriel stepped away from the door before they reached us. “No confrontation,” he told me quietly.
Back upstairs, he used the conference room printer to copy Dana’s logs, his suspension notice, and the archive index. He sealed one set in an envelope addressed to outside counsel and photographed every page with an offline camera.
Shaw watched from the doorway. “You’re making this worse.”
Gabriel removed his foundation credential and placed it on the table.
“I’m resigning from authority over the internal inquiry,” he said. “I’m preserving these records independently.”
The muscles in Shaw’s face tightened. “You’re choosing her allegation over this institution.”
Gabriel looked at me, then back at him. “I’m choosing evidence over an institution’s preference.”
Outside, my phone filled with alerts. Martin’s fundraising event had been expanded into a press briefing. One headline named me directly and promised a response to “threats against the foundation’s integrity.”
Gabriel read it beside me beneath the glass walkway.
“He wants you in hiding tomorrow,” he said.
May you like
I watched staff members cross overhead, badges swinging from their necks.
“Then tomorrow,” I said, “I’m going into his room.”
