Paged

Denise arrived before Lillian did, which was, I suspected, exactly the order she would have chosen if anyone had asked her.

"You gave a candidate confidential HR files," she said to the guard, ignoring me entirely. "That tablet is stolen property. I want real police in this building, not just security, and I want her escorted out in handcuffs if that's what it takes."

"It's not stolen," the guard said. "It's hers."

"It's not hers to have. Nothing about her badge or her paperwork adds up, and I am telling you, as the department head, that she needs to leave right now."

Owen appeared in the doorway behind her, his laminated badge crooked, his hands doing the thing hands do when a person has finally decided to say something they have been holding back all morning. "Her badge printed itself," he said. "This morning. Before she even signed in. I told you that already."

Denise turned on him with a look that made him take half a step back, but for the first time all morning, he did not retreat any further than that.

"I should have told someone sooner," he said, quieter now, but not backing down. "I didn't, because I didn't want it to be my problem. It's my problem now."

The elevator chimed at the end of the hall. A woman in a charcoal suit stepped out, a leather portfolio under one arm, a board lanyard worn openly over her blouse, moving with the unhurried pace of someone who has never once needed to run to be taken seriously.

"Denise," she said, before anyone else could speak. "I got a message that there was a security incident involving a visitor from the board office."

Denise's whole posture changed, softened, recalibrated toward the new highest-ranking person in the hallway. "Lillian, thank God. There's been a serious misunderstanding with this woman, she's been impersonating a candidate and accessing systems she shouldn't."

"I know Grace Ferris," Lillian said. "I sent her in myself, two hours ago."

For the first time all morning, Denise did not have anything ready to say.

"Conference room," Lillian said, to both of us. "Now."