Chương 7
It sounded like a door already closing.
"When?"
Priya glanced at the screen.
"Three weeks ago."
Daniel frowned.
Three weeks.
He remembered that week because his daughter Lily had been sick and he had spent two nights sleeping on the couch beside her bedroom door.
He had barely touched his work laptop.
"That was impossible."
Eric sighed.
"Daniel."
"No."
He leaned forward.
"You don't get to say my name like that and pretend this is a misunderstanding."
Nobody moved.
Outside the glass walls, employees walked past pretending not to look.
That was the part Daniel hated most.
Not the accusation.
Not the fear.
The quiet curiosity of people who were already rewriting his story in their heads.
Melissa folded her hands.
"We are asking you to cooperate while we investigate."
"Am I fired or am I not?"
Another silence.
Priya answered.
"Your employment status is suspended pending review."
Daniel looked at the paper again.
The word terminated stared back at him.
Someone had already made a decision.
He left the building forty minutes later carrying a cardboard box that contained a coffee mug, two framed photographs, a notebook full of unfinished ideas, and a small plastic dinosaur Lily had left on his desk after visiting him during a company family day.
The security guard at the lobby entrance nodded awkwardly.
Daniel knew the man wanted to say something.
He also knew neither of them wanted the embarrassment of pretending everything was normal.
Outside, the city was loud and impatient.
Cars moved through traffic.
People crossed streets while looking at their phones.
A woman argued with someone through wireless earbuds.
Nobody cared that Daniel's life had suddenly changed.
That realization hurt more than he expected.
He sat in his car for almost twenty minutes without starting it.
The plastic dinosaur fell from the box onto the passenger seat.
Daniel picked it up.
The tiny green figure had one eye scratched off.
Lily had told him it made the dinosaur look brave because it had survived.
He almost smiled.
Then his phone buzzed.
It was a message from his wife, Rachel.
"How did the meeting go?"
He stared at the screen.
He could have lied.
He almost did.
Instead, he typed three words.
"They suspended me."
The reply came quickly.
"Come home."
Daniel expected questions.
He expected panic.
He expected anger.
Rachel gave him something worse.
Silence.
When he arrived, she was sitting at the kitchen table with a grocery receipt folded into a tiny square between her fingers.
She did that when she was worried.
She folded paper until there was almost nothing left of it.
Lily was upstairs watching television.
The normal sound of a cartoon coming through the ceiling made the kitchen feel strangely unfair.
Rachel looked at the box.
"You brought your things."
Daniel placed it on the floor.
"Apparently I did."
She looked away.
"Did you do it?"
The question hurt because he knew she had to ask.
He sat across from her.
"No."
Rachel nodded slowly.
Not believing.
Not disbelieving.
Just absorbing.
"We need to know everything."
"I know."
"Daniel."
He rubbed his face.
"I didn't do this."
"I heard you."
"But you don't believe me."
Rachel looked down at the folded receipt.
"I believe you think you didn't."
The sentence made him angry.
It was an ugly kind of anger.
The kind that appeared before fairness had a chance to arrive.
"You think I accidentally leaked company information?"
"I think people make mistakes."
"That is not an answer."
"No."
She looked at him.
"It isn't."
For several seconds, they sat in the uncomfortable space between honesty and comfort.
Their marriage had survived bills, illnesses, family arguments, and years when they barely saw each other because of work.
But this was different.
This attacked the way people saw him.
And worse, it attacked the way he saw himself.
"I need my laptop," Daniel said.
Rachel hesitated.
"Why?"
"Because if someone used my account, I need to know how."
She nodded.
"Okay."
The word sounded small.
But it was the first thing that felt like movement.
That night, Daniel sat at the kitchen table while the rest of the house slept.
He opened old emails.
He checked login alerts.
He searched through folders he had ignored for months.
The deeper he looked, the stranger it became.
The suspicious activity was real.
The files had been opened.
The timestamps existed.
But one detail bothered him.
The access happened from his account at 2:14 in the morning.
Daniel never worked at 2:14 in the morning.
Not anymore.
He stopped and looked toward the dark hallway.
Years earlier, he used to wake up at that hour constantly.
After his father died.
After the hospital calls.
After the months when grief turned sleep into something that happened to other people.
But that was years ago.
He had changed passwords.
He had changed habits.
He had changed everything.
At least he thought he had.
The next morning, Daniel called the company's technology department.
The person who answered recognized his name and became noticeably more formal.
"Mr. Mercer, your access has been restricted."
"I need information about my account activity."
"I'm sorry, I can't provide that."
"Even if someone used my credentials?"
"Please contact your manager."
Daniel closed his eyes.
A wall.
Everywhere he looked, another wall.
Then the person on the other end lowered their voice.
"Mr. Mercer."
Daniel waited.
"I shouldn't say this."
The pause was long.
"But you should check who else had access to the shared project folder."
"Why?"
"I didn't say anything."
The call ended.
Daniel stared at the phone.
It was not enough to prove anything.
It was barely even a clue.
But it was the first thing he had received all day that did not feel like a door closing.
He opened the company folder records again.
The shared folder showed four names.
His.
Eric's.
A junior analyst named Kevin.
And Martin Hale.
May you like
Daniel looked at Martin's name for a long time.
The man from the conference room.
