What The Tablet Shows

The guard's radio crackled twice before he answered it, and whatever he heard made him stand a little straighter.

"Ma'am," he said, turning back to me, "I need you to stay right where you are while this gets confirmed."

"I can save everyone some time," I said, and reached into my folder for the audit tablet instead of my phone. The guard tensed until he saw what was actually in my hand: a slim black tablet with a cracked corner on the case, already open to a page he was clearly not expecting a job candidate to have.

"This is the marketing department's open requisition file," I said, turning the screen toward him. "Look at the timestamp on this line."

He leaned in despite himself. A single line glowed red near the bottom of the entry. "Interview logged complete, nine-oh-five a.m."

"I checked in at nine o'clock," I said. "The candidate this refers to walked past me toward the elevator at nine-eleven. Nobody interviewed him for anything before that timestamp was created."

The guard read it twice. I watched something shift in his posture, the readiness draining out of his shoulders and something closer to caution taking its place.

"I'm not a candidate," I said, before he could ask. "I'm a forensic auditor retained by the board. I was placed in that lobby this morning specifically to see how the marketing department handles an applicant nobody thinks is worth checking twice. I'd like you to radio whoever is coordinating security and tell them General Counsel needs to reach this room directly, not through Denise Colton."

He didn't reach for his belt this time. He reached for his radio.

"Copy that," he said into it, reading my name off my badge for the first time since he'd walked me down the hall. "I think you're going to want to come down here yourself."