Chapter 3
By the time the boardroom emptied, the watch report lay beneath my hand like a dare.
Marisol remained beside the table, gathering pages into her red folder. I slid the printout back toward her.
“I want the original expense file,” I said. “Not another summary. The entry as it was first submitted, and whatever shows who changed it.”
“I’ll ask Grant to bring it up.”
“Ask him to bring the audit history, too.”
Marisol paused. “He controls the finance system.”
“Then he’ll know where to look.”
She studied my face, perhaps deciding whether I understood the difference between asking for a record and accusing someone of hiding one. I understood. I also understood that the difference would not matter to the person who wanted the record gone.
Grant Mercer arrived ten minutes later, carrying no file.
He was a compact man with a silver tie and the patient expression of someone accustomed to explaining away problems before they became anyone else’s. He glanced at the expense report, then at Marisol.
“The system migration created some irregularities,” he said. “Routine ones. Old entries don’t always transfer cleanly.”
“Did the original entry transfer?” I asked.
“Not in a form we can retrieve.”
“Who submitted it?”
Grant pressed his lips together. “I’d have to check.”
“You control the system.”
“I oversee finance. That doesn’t mean I personally remember every transaction.”
“I’m not asking you to remember it. I’m asking you to find it.”
His eyes flicked toward the company name printed beside the watch’s model. “The report may have been coded incorrectly. That’s all we know.”
“Then the original file should clear that up.”
“It may not exist anymore.”
Marisol’s pen stopped moving.
I leaned forward. “You’re saying the migration erased the record that would tell us why a luxury watch was charged to the company?”
“I’m saying there are gaps in the archive.”
“Were those gaps documented?”
Grant’s expression cooled. “This is more complicated than it looks, Claire.”
“Then help me understand it.”
For a second, nobody spoke. Outside the glass wall, employees moved through the corridor with their eyes carefully fixed ahead.
Grant finally nodded. “I’ll see what can be recovered.”
He left without promising when.
Marisol watched the door close. “He’s not wrong that the systems are old.”
“I didn’t say they were new.”
“No. You didn’t.”
The quiet in her voice told me she’d heard the distinction, too.
I carried the report to my office and shut the door. My dress was still damp where the matcha had soaked through, the fabric cooling against my ribs. I hung my jacket over the back of the chair instead of using it to hide the stain.
A message appeared on my phone.
It was from Dana Lee, the employee who had warned me the day before that Julian protected Chloe.
Can we talk somewhere private? I saw something I think you should know.
I answered at once.
Tell me where.
We met in a small conference room with a frosted-glass wall and a door that didn’t quite latch unless you pulled it hard. Dana stood beside the table, clutching a thin notebook to her chest.
“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble,” she said.
“Then tell me only what you saw.”
She sat, but kept her fingers locked around the notebook. “Chloe has access to the executive-office scheduling system. More than she should need, I think. I’ve seen her open the access records and change entries herself.”
“What kind of entries?”
“Who was cleared to go where. When certain doors were logged as opened.” Dana’s eyes darted toward the frosted glass. “I don’t know why she changed them. I just know they weren’t the same afterward.”
The words landed with a weight that had nothing to do with the expense report.
“Did you tell anyone?”
“Once. A supervisor. Nothing happened.” She swallowed. “After that, I stopped writing things down.”
“You don’t have to guess about her motives. Just describe what you saw.”
Dana opened the notebook. Her handwriting filled half a page—dates, times, a few careful lines about seeing Chloe at the access console. She hesitated before tearing it out.
“Will this go to Julian?”
“I can’t promise what a review will require,” I said. “But I won’t pretend you said something you didn’t.”
She held my gaze, searching for the sort of comfort I couldn’t honestly give her.
Then she placed the page in my hand.
I folded it once and slid it into my board folder. The paper felt too thin to carry the fear on Dana’s face.
“Thank you,” I said.
She gave a small, uncertain nod. “I hope I didn’t make things worse.”
I wanted to tell her she hadn’t. I wanted to make the promise that people with less power are always asked to believe.
Instead, I said, “You shouldn’t have to carry this alone.”
When I returned to my office, Julian was waiting inside.
He stood by the window, hands in his pockets. Beyond him, the city pressed its pale morning light against the glass. The familiar angle of his shoulders—one slightly lower than the other—pulled me backward to our first apartment, where a leak under the kitchen sink had left a mixing bowl on the floor for three days.
He’d made me laugh about it then. We’d danced barefoot around the bowl while rain tapped at the window, believing that if we could laugh together, we could survive anything.
“I remember that apartment,” he said, as if he’d followed my thoughts. “The sink. The terrible coffee. You telling me we’d figure everything out.”
I put my folder on the desk. “We did figure some things out.”
His gaze dropped to my stained dress. “Claire, I know today has been humiliating.”
“Then you know why the record matters.”
“I know you’re angry.”
“I’m asking for the truth.”
“You’re looking for it in my office.”
“Your office?” I said. “I’m the CEO.”
He flinched, just slightly. “You know what I mean.”
“Yes. I do.”
He came closer, lowering his voice. “We built a life before this title, before the board, before every person in this building decided our marriage was company business. Don’t let one ugly morning turn into a war.”
The memory he’d offered—the leaky sink, our laughter—had once felt like proof we belonged to each other. Now it felt like a hand on a door he wanted closed.
“Is that what you think this is?” I asked. “A war I started?”
“I’m asking you to stop investigating my office.”
“Then give me a reason to.”
His expression tightened. “You don’t know what you’re stepping into.”
“That’s why I’m looking.”
For a moment, he looked like the man who had once danced with me in a kitchen with a bowl beneath the sink. Then the softness vanished, and he turned for the door.
“Don’t make me choose between you and the company,” he said.
“You already made choices without telling me.”
He left.
I stared at the closed door until the room came back into focus. Then I opened my board folder, needing to see Dana’s statement again.
The folded page was gone.
I checked between the report and my notes. I emptied the folder onto the desk and searched the pockets, though I knew exactly where I’d put it.
Nothing.
My pulse beat hard in my throat. The office door stood open; people crossed the corridor beyond it, their voices blurred by distance.
At the far end, Chloe watched me through the glass.
She didn’t smile. She didn’t have to.
My phone buzzed against the desk.
Dana’s name appeared on the screen.
May you like
The message was one sentence.
Chloe has found out what I witnessed.
