Chapter 8
We left the factory floor with Graham’s deadline hanging over us and the workers’ questions following like footsteps. Ian was waiting in the narrow conference room beside the records office, where the blinds were shut and a paper cup of coffee had gone cold beside his elbow.
He looked worse than he had the night before. His collar was damp, and a red mark crossed the side of his neck where he’d been rubbing it.
Meredith closed the door behind us. “You said you knew something about the recording.”
Ian glanced at me, then at the phone in her hand. “Let me see the file details.”
She didn’t pass it over. “You can tell us what you know without touching my phone.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. “The file your attorney released has a creation date. It’s from the night Graham called a private meeting in this room.”
I looked around. A long table, a wall clock, a framed photograph of the plant before the new roof went on. Nothing about the room suggested it had been chosen to hold a secret.
“What was the meeting about?” I asked.
“The sale. Your investment. Meredith’s settlement.” Ian’s eyes flicked to her face. “Graham wanted to know what you’d accept if the plant changed hands.”
“That’s not the conversation I had with him,” I said.
“I know. I was there.”
The words landed harder than his warning had. Meredith set her phone on the table, screen up, but kept one hand over it.
“You were in this room when he recorded Adrian?”
“I was in the room. I didn’t know he was recording until later.” Ian swallowed. “He had his phone facedown near the folder. I saw the red light after you left.”
“You saw it and said nothing,” Meredith said.
“Yes.”
No excuse came quickly enough to soften the answer. Ian lowered his gaze to the cold coffee.
I remembered the clipped audio—the sharp cuts, the missing pauses, my voice made to sound like a man bargaining over the plant and his wife in the same breath. “Did Graham record that entire meeting?”
“He recorded more than one conversation.” Ian’s fingers tightened around the paper cup until it buckled. “The file you heard is stitched together. Some of it came from this room. Some came from another discussion about your settlement.”
Meredith’s expression didn’t change, but her hand curled against the table. “Can you prove that?”
“I can tell you the dates and who was present. I can tell you which parts were cut.” He paused. “I can’t tell you what Graham kept.”
“Why not?”
“Because I helped him.”
For a moment, the room seemed to narrow around that sentence. Ian had been the one pointing us toward Graham’s approvals, the questionable payments, the sale proceeds. I’d treated his warnings like a lifeline. Now I could see the frayed strands.
Meredith stepped closer to the table. “What did you do?”
“I approved invoices I knew weren’t properly supported.” He spoke in a low, scraped voice. “Not every one. Enough of them. Graham told me the vendors were temporary holding companies, that the paperwork would be corrected after the rescue financing cleared.”
“And you believed him?”
“I wanted to.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No.” He looked at her then. “It isn’t.”
I took in the pale crease between his brows, the way his thumb kept working at the crushed cup. Fear was there, certainly. So was the shame of a man who had waited until the damage was too large to hide.
“What happened to Thomas’s ledger?” I asked.
Ian’s eyes closed briefly. “Graham found it after Thomas died. He asked me to move it before the auditors came through. I took it out of the records office and gave it to him.”
Meredith’s face tightened. “You stole it.”
“Yes.”
“You knew it belonged to my father.”
“I knew.”
“And you let us believe it was simply missing.”
Ian set the ruined cup down. “I thought Graham would put it back once he’d removed the entries he was worried about. Then he said if I talked, he’d make sure my son lost his apprenticeship and my wife lost the medical coverage tied to my job.”
Meredith’s anger didn’t ease. If anything, it sharpened. “You keep telling us what he threatened. What did you choose?”
Ian flinched.
“You chose to move the ledger,” she continued. “You chose to approve those invoices. Don’t hide behind what Graham made you afraid of. Tell us what you did.”
The silence stretched. Somewhere beyond the walls, a machine struck metal with a hollow clang.
“I did it,” he said at last. “I was afraid, and I did it anyway.”
Meredith held his gaze. “That’s the first useful thing you’ve said.”
His eyes shone, but he didn’t look away. “I’m not asking you to forgive me.”
“Good. I’m asking you to help stop him.”
“I can.” He reached inside his jacket and drew out a folded sheet, its corners softened from handling. “I copied one page from the ledger before I gave him the original. I kept it hidden.”
I didn’t move toward it. “What does it show?”
“Transactions. Dates, amounts, vendor codes. It’s one page, not the whole account.” He placed it on the table between us but kept two fingers pressed to its edge. “It may connect Crown Meridian to the payments. It may not prove where the money ended up.”
“Why keep it?” I asked.
“Because I couldn’t bring myself to give Graham everything.” His mouth twisted. “That’s not the same as doing the right thing.”
“No,” Meredith said. “It isn’t.”
She reached for the page. Ian’s fingers stayed on it.
“Where’s the copy?” she asked.
“In a metal tool cabinet behind the old maintenance counter. The cabinet’s locked, and Graham assigned security to the aisle after the lathe was moved.”
“Then give me the key.”
Ian looked toward the windowless wall as if he could see the factory floor through it. “If Graham finds us at that cabinet, he’ll know I gave you this.”
“He already knows we’re looking,” Meredith said. “You told us yourself.”
“I know what he can do to my family.”
“And I know what happens to the people who worked here if he sells the plant and moves that money.” Her voice dropped, but it didn’t soften. “You can be afraid. You can regret it. But you don’t get to ask us to carry the risk while you keep the proof locked away.”
Ian’s fingers came off the page. “You’re right.”
He stood and went to the door, then stopped with his hand on the knob. I watched him gather himself, one breath at a time, as if the distance to the cabinet were longer than the hallway outside.
“Come with us,” I said.
He glanced at me. “You don’t trust me.”
“Not yet.”
A faint, weary nod. “Fair.”
Meredith folded the copied page and tucked it into her coat pocket. “We’ll see what’s there. Then you tell the truth to whoever needs to hear it.”
“I will.”
The answer wasn’t brave, but it was no longer an excuse.
We stepped into the service corridor. The factory’s noise rose around us—fans, distant voices, the uneven thrum of equipment still running while the sale threatened to decide who would keep their job. Ian led us toward the maintenance counter, moving quickly now, his shoulders rigid beneath his jacket.
At the end of the corridor, he stopped beside a gray metal cabinet bolted to the wall. A fresh strip of tape crossed its handle, stamped with the security department’s initials. Ian reached into his pocket.
Meredith looked past him, toward the loading-bay windows.
“Adrian.”
A dark sedan was turning into the plant lot.
May you like
Graham’s car.
Ian’s hand closed around the hidden cabinet key.
