The Hallway Call

"Paperwork's clean, I promise you. I cleaned it up before the real auditor even gets here."

Denise's voice carried easily through the side room's thin door, pitched for a phone call she thought no one could hear. I sat very still and let every word land.

"This afternoon," she said. "Two o'clock, supposedly. Some stuffy guy from the board office, probably fifty pounds of binder clips." A pause, then a laugh. "No, nothing to worry about. Tyler's already logged as interviewed. Everything upstairs looks normal."

I checked my watch. Nine forty-one. Tyler Colton's interview, according to Denise, had already happened, though he had crossed the lobby toward the elevator about half an hour ago holding nothing but a paper coffee cup.

"The budget line's fine too," Denise continued, quieter now. "It's been running fine for two years. Nobody looks at vendor invoices that closely." Another pause. "I have to go, there's a candidate situation out here. Some woman refusing to leave."

The call ended. Footsteps approached the side room door and stopped just outside it, close enough that I could hear Denise exhale before she decided not to come in.

I thought about Owen's face when he had mentioned my badge, and about a printer tray that had my visitor profile ready before I had signed anything. I thought about a two o'clock meeting Denise expected and dreaded, a meeting she believed had not started yet.

She had no idea it already had.

I did not call out. I did not open the door and correct her. There would be a much better room for that conversation than this one, and a much better audience than an empty office with a water-stained ceiling tile. I opened my note again and added a line under the timestamps: budget line, two years, vendor invoices nobody checks.

Then I sat back, folded my hands over the folder in my lap, and waited to see who Denise sent next.