Chapter 2: The Missing Hour
Chapter 2: The Missing Hour
The adrenaline fading left Nora shivering violently as Evelyn guided her into the plush, soundproofed private office behind the staff lounge.
"Sit," Evelyn commanded, tossing Nora a thick, dry cashmere throw from the sofa. "Tell me exactly how you ended up on the floor."
Nora wrapped the throw tightly around her shoulders. Her mind raced back to 5:15 p.m., just an hour before the dinner service began. She had been tasked with moving the VIP donor portfolios from the temporary administrative desk to the locked safe.
"I was carrying the portfolios," Nora said, her voice shaking. "I tripped. One of them fell open. It was the Mercer file."
Evelyn’s eyes narrowed. "What did you see?"
"Invoices," Nora whispered. "Catering, venue rentals, floral arrangements. But the numbers didn't match what we actually paid. The invoices in his folder were inflated by hundreds of thousands of dollars. They were billing the foundation for ghost services and routing the money to an LLC."
"And Grant saw you looking."
May you like
Nora nodded. "He came out of the restroom. He saw the papers scattered on the floor. He helped me pick them up, but he saw me reading the LLC name. He told me he had no idea who I was. Then, at the dinner... he cornered me while I was refilling the ice. He said if I breathed a word, he'd make sure I never worked in this city again."
Evelyn walked over to her desk and unlocked the bottom drawer. "He was trying to terrify you into silence. Because he knows what happens tomorrow morning."
