Chương 10
Eve tightened her hand around the suitcase handle.
Adrian looked toward the photograph inside his office.
“Six weeks before she died, she told me there was someone at Westbridge she no longer trusted.”
Eve stopped beside the elevator.
“Did she say who?”
“No.”
“That seems important.”
“It is.”
“Why didn’t you mention it five minutes ago?”
Adrian’s jaw shifted.
“Because every time I mention Claire, people start treating whatever happened afterward as an extension of her death.”
“Isn’t some of it?”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t make it irrelevant.”
“No.”
He looked toward the office again.
“She said someone was changing numbers before they reached her.”
Eve’s attention sharpened.
“What numbers?”
“Supplier costs.”
“Changing them how?”
“She didn’t know yet.”
“And then?”
“She got sicker.”
The answer flattened the corridor around them.
Eve said nothing.
Adrian continued.
“She was going to look into it when she came back.”
“She never came back.”
“No.”
The elevator arrived with a soft chime.
The doors opened.
Neither of them moved.
Eve looked at him.
“Did you investigate after she died?”
“I asked questions.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
For the first time since she had met him, Adrian looked ashamed.
Not dramatically.
He simply lowered his eyes.
“I was not functioning well.”
The elevator doors began to close.
Eve reached out and stopped them with her hand.
Adrian glanced up.
“I spent six months sleeping three hours a night and making decisions people praised because nobody understood I was barely making them.”
His voice remained even.
“That is not an excuse.”
“No.”
“It explains the delay.”
“Yes.”
“Then what happened?”
“By the time I looked again, Claire’s files had been archived, two people had left, and her father was handling the company.”
“You told him?”
“I asked whether there had been any irregularities.”
“What did he say?”
“That Claire worried too much when she was sick.”
Eve’s mouth tightened.
“That sounds convenient.”
“It did then too.”
The elevator chimed again in protest.
She stepped inside.
Adrian remained in the corridor.
“Send Marianne the formal request.”
“And include whatever you have from Claire.”
He hesitated.
“All of it?”
“Anything related to Westbridge.”
“That may include personal notes.”
“Then remove what is personal.”
His face closed slightly.
Eve understood the resistance.
“Or give it to legal first.”
He nodded.
“That’s reasonable.”
The doors started closing again.
This time Eve let them.
Just before they met, Adrian said, “She trusted very few people near the end.”
Eve looked through the narrowing gap.
“Maybe she had a reason.”
Then the doors shut.
The ride down felt much longer than the ride up.
Eve stared at her reflection in the brushed metal doors and tried to separate what she knew from what Adrian feared.
An anonymous leak.
A restructuring draft.
Old concerns about supplier costs.
A dead operations executive.
A grieving husband who now controlled the company through an acquisition his wife had once opposed.
There were too many places for grief to masquerade as evidence.
There were also too many places for evidence to hide beneath grief.
Her phone buzzed before she reached the lobby.
Marianne.
Eve answered.
“I’m leaving now.”
“What happened?”
“He wants us to conduct an on-site trust assessment at Westbridge.”
There was a pause.
“That sounds normal enough.”
“It gets less normal.”
“I assumed.”
Eve stepped out of the elevator and lowered her voice.
“He thinks there may be an internal leak.”
“Current?”
“Yes.”
“Illegal?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Dangerous?”
“Professionally, possibly.”
Marianne exhaled.
“Anything else?”
Eve looked toward the security desk.
“Yes.”
“Of course there is.”
“His late wife’s family founded Westbridge.”
Marianne went quiet.
Eve continued toward the exit.
“And she suspected someone there was manipulating supplier-cost data before she died.”
This silence lasted longer.
When Marianne finally spoke, her voice had lost all humor.
“Do not touch anything until legal reviews the scope.”
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
“And we need written authority, indemnification language, document-access rules, interview protocols, and clear separation between communications work and anything that looks remotely like an investigation.”
“That was my thought.”
“No, your thought was probably that this is interesting.”
Eve pushed through the revolving door.
Cold wind hit her face.
“It is interesting.”
“That is why I’m worried.”
Eve smiled despite herself.
A cab honked at someone near the curb.
Marianne said, “Where are you staying tonight?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“The agency will cover another night.”
“You said travel would notice.”
“I’m approving it.”
“That was fast.”
“I would rather explain a hotel expense than explain why my lead strategist wandered into a sensitive corporate matter exhausted.”
Eve stopped beside a planter filled with brown winter grass.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t make me regret it.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“That is not reassuring.”
Eve laughed.
For the first time all day, the sound did not feel borrowed.
She booked a room near South Station, bought toothpaste because hers was still at the first hotel, and spent the evening at a small restaurant where everyone around her seemed to be on a date.
A couple at the next table argued quietly about whether someone named Trevor had been invited to a wedding.
Eve ate soup and tried not to listen.
She failed.
“No, you said Trevor could bring a guest.”
“I said maybe.”
“You absolutely did not say maybe.”
“I implied maybe.”
Eve nearly laughed into her spoon.
Apparently ambiguous communication was destroying relationships at every income level.
She checked her phone.
No messages from Preston because he was blocked.
The absence hurt anyway.
She hated that blocking someone did not stop the body from expecting them.
At nine-thirty, Marianne emailed the first draft of the Westbridge engagement scope.
At nine-forty-two, Lena sent comments.
At ten-oh-five, Sterling Capital’s legal team sent twenty-three tracked changes.
Eve sat cross-legged on the hotel bed in an old T-shirt and read every line.
May you like
The assignment was narrower than Adrian had first described.
Her agency would assess employee trust, information flow, and communication failures connected to the restructuring.
