Chapter 6
The ballroom had filled before I finished checking the last place cards.
Conversation moved beneath the chandeliers in polished waves. Donors lifted champagne glasses, foundation staff carried trays between them, and the quartet in the corner played softly enough that everyone could pretend the room belonged to them. I kept my shoulders loose and my expression pleasant while the staff member Martin had assigned watched me from beside the registration table.
He wasn't obvious about it. That was the point. He looked down at his clipboard whenever I glanced his way, then looked up again whenever I moved.
My phone stayed in my right hand, tucked against the black fabric of my handbag. The original recording was still there, buried beneath ordinary photographs and calendar alerts. I had stopped trusting the foundation's computers, but I needed to know whether the remote copy had survived Martin's private meeting with me.
A staff tablet sat on a narrow counter inside the workroom, its screen open to the event schedule. I waited until two servers came in arguing quietly about missing dessert plates, then slipped behind them.
The account page took longer to load than it should have.
I signed in without saving the password. A security panel opened with a list of recent activity. My breath caught before I could stop it.
One access appeared at 7:18 p.m.
Martin had called me into the private dressing suite at 7:15.
The device was listed only as Foundation-Admin-04, but the time was close enough to make my fingers stiffen around the tablet. Someone had opened the account while Martin was telling me that silence could still be called cooperation if I signed the right paper.
I tapped the backup folder.
The recording thumbnail showed an error symbol. When I opened it, the file played in broken pieces: the scrape of a chair, Martin's voice flattened by compression, and then one clear sentence.
“Change the payment ledger before the committee sees it.”
The audio cut out there.
I played it again. Nothing followed. The rest of the file had been corrupted or removed, leaving only a fragment that proved something but not enough. My stomach tightened as I imagined Martin's attorneys reducing the sentence to a misunderstanding, a discussion about correcting an ordinary bookkeeping mistake.
The tablet chimed.
I closed the file immediately. Across the ballroom, the assigned staff member had turned toward the workroom.
I logged out, cleared the browser session, and did not touch the account again. The original phone in my hand suddenly felt heavier than the tablet had. The backup was exposed. The phone was not connected to the foundation network, and the recording on it had never been uploaded from a foundation device. That made it safer, though not safe.
I stepped into the service alcove beside the workroom and opened my messages. Eli's name sat near the top. I selected the access log, took one image, and sent it to him.
The message beneath it took me three tries.
I finally wrote: 7:18 p.m. Foundation-Admin-04. Martin was with me. Wait outside until I can leave.
His reply came less than a minute later.
I will. Don't come alone if you can avoid it.
I looked back through the narrow glass panel. The staff member stood near the tablet now, speaking to someone I couldn't see. He wasn't searching yet. He didn't need to. Martin had already made sure every exit from the room passed through someone else's attention.
A donor approached me before I could move, a silver-haired woman with a foundation pin at her collar.
“Miss Han, Martin said you were coordinating the welcome remarks.”
“I am,” I said, keeping my voice even. “They begin in twelve minutes.”
She smiled, satisfied by the answer, and asked me about the order of acknowledgments. I walked her back toward the ballroom, answering each question while my mind held on to the damaged file and the precise time stamped beside it.
At the edge of the stage, I saw Martin watching from between two donors. His face was calm. He raised his glass slightly, as if we shared a private understanding.
I returned the gesture because refusing would have drawn attention.
Then I placed my phone inside my handbag and kept one hand over it while I continued working the event. I would finish the remarks, wait for a believable break, and leave through the service corridor.
May you like
The backup might have been compromised. The original was still mine.
For the first time that evening, that difference felt like a decision.
