Two Years

"Vendor payment records," Lillian said, sliding a second document from her portfolio, older and more worn than the first. "Meridian Creative Consulting. You approved eleven invoices to this company over the last two years, Denise. Would you like to tell me who owns it, or should I?"

Denise said nothing. Her hand was still trapped under Lillian's on the table.

"Meridian Creative Consulting is registered to your brother-in-law," Lillian said. "Same address as your sister's house. No employees, no office, no work product on file anywhere in this building. Just invoices, every quarter, for two years, approved by you."

"You don't understand how that budget works," Denise said, and even she seemed to hear how thin it sounded.

"I understand exactly how it works," Lillian said. "I've read all eleven invoices twice."

I thought about the badge in the printer tray, about Owen's careful half-sentences, about the afternoon audit Denise thought she had already talked her way around. Every piece of it reached back to this same table, this same folder, this same two years of quiet math nobody had bothered to check.

"Tyler's interview wasn't the problem," I said. "It was the tell. You logged it before it happened because you had stopped thinking anyone was actually watching."

Denise pulled her hand free and pressed it flat against her chest, the fight going out of her all at once, replaced by something smaller and far less convincing. "Please," she said. "My pension. My daughter's tuition is tied to my salary through next year."

Lillian closed the portfolio. "Security will walk you to your office to collect your things. Your badge deactivates the moment you stand up."

Through the glass, Owen watched Denise's face with an expression that had nothing triumphant in it at all, only a kind of tired relief.

"What about Tyler?" I asked.

"His offer never existed anywhere but in this file," Lillian said. "I'll call HR from the hallway."