Chapter 9
June’s message arrived at 9:17, while Mateo and I were comparing the copied attendance reports at my kitchen table.
Can you meet me after closing? Church lot on Bell. 10:30. Please don’t come inside the gym.
I read it twice. Mateo watched my face without reaching for the phone.
“June?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Do you want me there?”
The question mattered because he left room for no.
“Yes. But let me talk first.”
He closed the report in front of him. “Okay.”
At 10:26, we parked beneath a dead light at the far edge of the church lot. The building was dark except for a yellow glow near the side entrance. Painted lines crossed the cracked pavement, and a faded sign directed Sunday traffic into two lanes. Mateo stayed in the passenger seat while I stood beside the car, breathing cold air and watching the road.
June pulled in four minutes later. She parked two spaces away and kept both hands on the wheel for a moment after shutting off the engine.
When she got out, she had her work bag tight against her side.
“I can’t stay long,” she said.
“You don’t have to stay at all.”
Her eyes moved to Mateo through the windshield.
“He knows about the reports,” I said. “And his own recorded hours.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No.” I paused. “Do you want him to leave?”
June considered it, then shook her head. “He can hear this.”
Mateo stepped out but remained by the passenger door. He didn’t move closer.
June opened her bag and took out a manila envelope. “Damon told me to reset the scheduling tablet tomorrow night. He called it routine maintenance before the gala.”
“Has that happened before?”
“Resets happen. Not usually before the end of the month.”
She held the envelope but didn’t release it yet.
“I was assigned closing duties tonight,” she continued. “The normal procedure before a reset is to export the system history and verify that the file opens. I did that. I didn’t take the tablet. I didn’t access anything outside my permissions.”
Her careful phrasing told me she had rehearsed every word on the drive over.
“What did the export show?” I asked.
June finally handed me the envelope.
Inside was a printed notification log, each page marked with the tablet’s system-generated date and export code. A second sheet showed the closing checklist with June’s employee login beside the completed export step.
She pointed to two lines near the middle of the log. “Those are the schedule entries for you and Mateo. Damon’s administrator account opened both shortly before the messages were sent.”
I studied the timestamps. First my entry. Then Mateo’s. Minutes later, the contradictory instructions that had sent us to the alley from opposite directions.
Mateo came closer, stopping at my shoulder. His breathing changed when he saw the times, but he didn’t touch the pages.
“So he changed them?” he asked.
June’s mouth tightened. “The history shows he opened them. It doesn’t show a saved change.”
“Could he have seen the notes attached to the entries?”
“Yes.”
“And the locations?”
“Yes.”
Mateo looked toward the empty church doors. “That’s enough to explain how he knew.”
“It shows he had access,” June said. “It does not show why he opened them.”
Her voice stayed level, but her fingers worried the edge of her bag strap.
I turned to the last page in the envelope. It was a dated instruction bearing Damon’s name, directing staff to perform a full scheduling reset before gala preparations began. The language was bland: improve performance, clear legacy notifications, prepare for donor demonstrations.
“Did he give you this directly?” I asked.
“He left it in the closing folder. It’s part of the shift record.”
“Did he say anything about the alley?”
“No.”
“The hidden phone?”
“No.”
“Do you know who put it there?”
June looked straight at me. “No. And I won’t guess.”
A car passed on Bell Street, washing the lot in headlights. We all fell silent until it was gone.
“I need to know how you’ll use this,” she said.
“We’ll keep the export with the reports,” I told her. “We won’t say you proved Damon staged the recording. You didn’t. We’ll say you completed an authorized export during your assigned closing shift, and that the history shows his account opened both schedule entries before the messages arrived.”
“And the reset order.”
“We’ll include the date and exact wording.”
June searched my face. “No adding what you think I meant?”
“No.”
“No saying I’m on your side?”
I felt the old urge to reassure her with something broad and impossible. That she’d be safe. That the truth would protect her. I let it pass.
“I’ll say you provided records and refused to speculate beyond them.”
Her shoulders lowered slightly.
Mateo took out his phone. “Would you be willing to email the original export to both of us, so the file doesn’t exist in only one place?”
June nodded. “I already sent it to my personal account through the approved archive option. I can forward that message. The header will show the source and time.”
She did it while we stood there. My phone chimed, then Mateo’s.
Before leaving, June rested one hand on her car door. “I’m not doing this because I know what Damon intended.”
“I understand.”
“I’m doing it because he ordered the history erased, and the history is part of my shift record.”
“I’ll keep that distinction exact.”
She got into her car and drove away without looking back.
Mateo and I remained under the dead light. The envelope felt heavier than paper should have.
“This links him to the timing,” Mateo said.
“But not the phone.”
May you like
“Not yet.”
Several days remained before the gala. For the first time, we had a record Damon hadn’t expected anyone to keep—and a witness whose limits I intended to protect as carefully as her evidence.
