Chương 7
I sent him the number.
He replied with a thumbs-up.
Then:
Also, my wife says getting suspended means I have time to fix the garage door.
I wrote:
This may be the real punishment.
He sent back:
Exactly.
That was all.
No secrets.
No documents.
No coded rebellion.
Just a broken garage door.
I put the phone down and felt slightly ashamed of myself.
At nine twelve, Grant called.
“I have news that is useful but not decisive.”
“You really know how to sell things.”
“The chart was changed by Lydia Rowe.”
I searched my memory.
“Derek’s executive assistant?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Did she create the packet?”
“She assembled it.”
“Did Derek tell her to crop the chart?”
“No evidence of that yet.”
“Then what do we have?”
“Version history.”
I stopped moving.
“Internal?”
“Yes.”
“Original presentation file?”
“Yes.”
Grant’s voice became more deliberate.
“Your chart was inserted intact Monday at 2:06 p.m.”
“And?”
“At 5:42, the slide was edited.”
“By Lydia.”
“Her credentials.”
“What changed?”
“The right-hand cost section was removed.”
“Anything else?”
“A footnote.”
“What footnote?”
“The one citing increased rework and customer returns.”
I felt anger climb into my throat.
“Grant.”
“I know.”
“Was anything added?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“A caption reading, ‘Initial purchasing program continues to outperform expectations.’”
I closed my eyes.
“That isn’t my language.”
“No.”
“Whose?”
“We are looking.”
“Lydia wouldn’t invent that.”
“You know her?”
“Barely.”
“Then don’t assume.”
“I’m not assuming.”
“You are doing it again.”
“Fine.”
I walked across the living room.
“Has anyone spoken to her?”
“Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because Thomas wants counsel present.”
“That sounds dramatic.”
“It is routine when preservation and executive reporting are involved.”
I stopped beside the bookshelf.
“What about metadata?”
“The caption appears to have been pasted from another document.”
“Which document?”
“We haven’t identified it.”
“So still not decisive.”
“Correct.”
I hated how quickly I was learning to hear uncertainty without mistaking it for weakness.
“What about Derek’s onboarding folder?”
“Search firm says they are retrieving archived access logs.”
“When?”
“Today.”
“Helpful.”
“You are becoming sarcastic.”
“I’ve always been sarcastic.”
“Fair.”
Grant cleared his throat.
“There is one more issue.”
I waited.
“The board packet includes a forecast for second-quarter customer credits.”
“I know.”
“The forecast understates booked credits by roughly forty percent.”
I sat down again.
“That can’t be right.”
“That was Thomas’s reaction.”
“Which credits?”
“Ridgewell, Parker Fluid, and two smaller accounts.”
“Those were booked.”
“That appears to be true.”
“Finance would know.”
“Yes.”
“Who prepared the forecast?”
“CFO’s team.”
I rubbed my forehead.
Harborstone’s CFO, Elaine Porter, had been with the company for eleven years and hated surprises with religious intensity.
She would not casually understate booked credits.
“Has Elaine seen the final packet?”
“Apparently not before distribution.”
“That makes no sense.”
“She provided schedules.”
“And nobody sent her the assembled version?”
“Correct.”
I stood again.
“So Derek controlled final assembly.”
“His office did.”
“He removed quality costs and understated credits.”
“No.”
Grant’s voice sharpened.
“Stop there.”
I bit back my response.
“We know his office assembled a packet containing those problems.”
“That is what we know.”
“Yes.”
“And tomorrow the board needs to determine how that happened.”
“Yes.”
I walked to the kitchen and opened a cabinet for no reason.
There was a jar of rice, three mismatched mugs, and a bag of chocolate chips I had apparently purchased during some forgotten burst of optimism.
I closed it.
“What does Thomas want from me?”
“Nothing today.”
“That’s becoming insulting.”
“It is meant to protect the process.”
“I am the process.”
“No.”
Grant said it gently.
“That is exactly what you are not.”
I went still.
The words stung because they touched something I had avoided for years.
Ninety percent ownership had let me privately believe that when Harborstone failed, I had failed.
When Harborstone succeeded, I had earned something.
When managers made decisions I hated, I could tell myself I had chosen restraint.
That was not governance.
That was vanity wearing responsible shoes.
“What am I, then?”
I asked.
“A shareholder.”
“That sounds smaller.”
“It is more limited.”
I understood what he meant.
Power with boundaries.
Authority without omniscience.
My grandfather had never been good at that distinction.
I was beginning to suspect I was not naturally gifted at it either.
At ten forty-three, Nina sent me a photo of an empty conference room.
No caption.
I replied with a question mark.
She wrote:
Derek canceled the production review.
Then:
Nobody knows why.
I did not answer.
At eleven seventeen, Thomas called.
His voice had changed.
“Can you come to my office?”
I looked at the clock.
“I thought I was supposed to do nothing.”
“That instruction has expired.”
“What happened?”
“We found the caption.”
My hand closed around the phone.
“Where?”
“In an email.”
“Whose?”
“Derek’s.”
I did not speak.
Thomas continued.
“Monday afternoon, he sent Lydia revised language for three slides.”
“The quality slide?”
“Yes.”
“What exactly did he say?”
“I’m not reading privileged material over the phone.”
“Thomas.”
“Elena.”
I grabbed my keys.
“Fine.”
“There’s more.”
I stopped at the door.
“What?”
“He also asked Lydia to remove what he called distracting downside detail before the shareholder meeting.”
For one second, I felt vindicated.
Then the feeling curdled.
“Does he mention me?”
“No.”
“Does he mention Wrenfield?”
“No.”
“So we still don’t know whether he knew.”
“Correct.”
“But we know he altered the board’s picture.”
“We know he directed edits that removed adverse information.”
“That should be enough.”
“For what?”
The question irritated me.
“For the board to act.”
“How?”
I opened my mouth.
Nothing came out.
Fire him was the obvious answer.
It was also the answer of a woman who had been fired less than twenty-four hours earlier.
Thomas let the silence sit between us.
“That,” he said quietly, “is why I want you here.”
I drove to his office through midday traffic and spent three red lights imagining Derek packing a box.
May you like
Each time, I made myself stop.
By the fourth light, I was angry at him.
