Chapter 5 - The Woman Who Kept Copies
The diner Nina chose was loud enough to make every conversation feel private. Plates clattered behind the counter, the coffee smelled scorched, and a bus sighed at the curb outside. Nina sat with her back to the wall, a canvas bag looped around one ankle.
She looked at Daniel first, not me.
“Before I risk anything, I want to hear what happened from you.”
Daniel slid into the booth across from her. “You already know what happened.”
“I know what you told yourself happened. That’s not the same thing.”
His jaw tightened. For a moment, I thought he would push back. Then he set both hands flat on the table.
“All right,” he said. “Ask.”
Nina’s gaze moved to the envelope beside his coffee. “Start with the accounts.”
“They were in my name and Eric’s,” Daniel said. “But he managed the day-to-day access. The bank contacts, the permissions, the passwords—he had them.”
“And you let him?”
“I did.”
Nina waited, giving him room to soften the answer. Daniel didn’t.
“I trusted him to handle it,” he said. “And when I started seeing numbers that didn’t line up, I decided I was too tired to understand them. I was trying to keep the biggest client from leaving and keep my family from falling apart. I told myself Eric knew more about the accounts than I did.”
A waitress set down three coffees. Nina didn’t touch hers.
“Do you remember what didn’t line up?” she asked.
“Payments showing up later than they should. Equipment charges I thought had been approved. I could’ve stopped and checked. I didn’t.” Daniel rubbed his thumb against the handle of his cup. “That doesn’t make me innocent.”
“No,” Nina said. “It doesn’t.”
The words landed cleanly. Daniel nodded once, as if he’d come expecting the blow and had finally stopped flinching away from it.
“But it also doesn’t mean you stole anything,” she added. “I need to know you understand the difference.”
“I do.”
“Do you?” Her voice sharpened. “Because if I give you anything and it turns out to be a bad record, a bad export, something I misunderstood, I’m the one who’ll be blamed for it. I handled those files. I signed off on some of them.”
“I won’t ask you to say more than you know,” Daniel said. “And I won’t pretend you’re responsible for what I failed to check.”
Nina’s eyes stayed on him. “You said that last night?”
“I said it just now.”
“That’s not the same as living it.”
Daniel glanced down. “No. It isn’t.”
I had seen him defend himself so often these past days that his quietness unsettled me more than an argument would have. He wasn’t asking Nina to take his side. He was letting her see the parts that made his side harder to take.
Nina reached for her coffee but only warmed her hands against the cup.
“Eric controlled the company’s account access,” she said. “Long before your login stopped working. He handled the permissions. He could lock people out without calling me, and he did.”
Daniel looked up. “You knew?”
“I knew he was the one making the changes. I didn’t know why he was making them.” She leaned closer, lowering her voice beneath the clatter. “And I’m not telling you that printout proves anything. A page can be made to say whatever someone needs it to say. I need intact headers, a trail, something that shows where it came from.”
“The cached copy has some fields.”
“Some isn’t all.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” Nina asked again. “Because last time you called, you sounded like you wanted me to fill in the blanks.”
Daniel’s shoulders drew in. “I did. I’m sorry.”
Her expression didn’t soften, but she stopped looking toward the door every few seconds.
A man at the counter laughed too loudly. A child in a red coat dropped a spoon, and the sound rang against the tile. Nina flinched at neither. She watched Daniel instead.
“I used to keep copies,” she said. “Working files. Things I needed to check month-end numbers without getting back into the company system every time. I kept them after I left.”
Daniel went still. “You have records?”
“I said I kept copies. I didn’t say I have what you need.”
“Where are they?”
“Some at home. Some may be on old drives. I haven’t opened them in months.” She turned to me. “And before you ask, no, I’m not handing over anything just because you flew in from Seattle.”
“I wasn’t going to ask,” I said.
“Good. Because this is my livelihood too, even if I don’t work there anymore.”
Daniel’s gaze dropped to the coffee. “I understand.”
Nina studied him, searching for the argument she’d been braced to hear. When it didn’t come, she looked away first.
Her phone vibrated against the table. She read the screen and answered.
“Luis?”
She listened, and the diner seemed to grow louder around her silence. Her fingers tightened around the phone.
“What do you mean, emptied?”
Daniel leaned forward. Nina lifted one finger to keep him back, though her eyes stayed on the screen.
“When did he order that?” she asked. “Was it company equipment?”
A pause.
“Luis, I can’t help if you won’t tell me what you saw.”
Another pause. Then her face changed—not fear, exactly, but the recognition of it.
“Don’t say my name to him.”
She ended the call.
“Who was that?” Daniel asked.
“A former employee.”
“What did he say?”
Nina shoved the phone into her bag. “Eric ordered the server room emptied.”
Daniel’s chair scraped against the floor as he started to rise. “When?”
“Sit down.”
“Did he say what they were taking?”
“I said sit down.” Her voice carried over the booth, and the family at the next table glanced over.
Daniel sat. His hands were shaking now, but he tucked them beneath the table.
Nina’s phone vibrated again. She pulled it out. No message appeared. She called back.
The call rang once, twice, then went to voicemail.
“Luis,” she said, trying to keep her voice level, “call me when you can. Don’t go back there alone.”
She hung up and stared at the dark screen.
“Why did he hang up?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” Nina slipped the phone away. “And I’m not going to guess.”
Daniel swallowed. “You don’t have to get involved.”
“I already am, if there’s a chance my old files matter.” She stood, lifting her bag. “I’ll search my archive. I’m not promising what I’ll find, and I’m not promising I’ll give you anything until I know what it is.”
“That’s fair,” Daniel said.
Nina looked at him as if she hadn’t expected those words.
“I’ll call you,” she said. “Not Eric. Not anyone else.”
Then she walked out into the cold, leaving her coffee untouched.
Daniel watched the door close behind her. “She thinks I’ll make it worse.”
“She thinks the wrong move could cost her,” I said.
“And it could.”
He didn’t ask me to tell him Nina would help. I was grateful he didn’t. We left the diner without finishing our coffee, the heat of it already fading in my hands.
That evening, Nina called. Her voice was hushed, and beneath it I heard the small, uneven sounds of a drawer being opened and shut.
“I found an index,” she said. “Most of it’s old bookkeeping material. I’m checking the dates against the copy you described.”
Daniel leaned toward the phone. “You don’t have to do this tonight.”
“I know what I have to do.”
There was a rustle, then silence. I pictured her alone with a box of old files, deciding which pieces of her past she could safely touch.
“Wait,” she said.
A drawer slid open. Something small clicked against the table.
“Daniel, there’s an encrypted backup label here.”
May you like
“What’s on it?” he asked.
“I can’t tell yet.” Her breath caught. “But the label bears the date of Eric’s email.”
