Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN IN THE SECURITY FOOTAGE.
I left my parents’ house before dessert.
Grandma Eleanor insisted on coming with me.
“You should not face this alone,” she said.
During the drive to Apex headquarters, my phone filled with alerts.
The story had already appeared online.
SECRETIVE CLEANING CEO REVEALED AS LOCAL FAMILY’S “FAILED DAUGHTER.”
The reporter had included details from the Thanksgiving dinner.
My mother’s insult appeared almost word for word.
That meant Melissa’s message had spread quickly.
But the article also contained information Melissa could not have known.
It mentioned my house.
My company’s revenue.
Our upcoming hospital acquisition.
It even described confidential negotiations scheduled for Monday.
When we reached headquarters, Marcus was waiting in the security office.
He displayed surveillance footage from the executive floor.
A woman wearing a maintenance uniform entered the records room at 11:42 the previous night.
She used a valid access card.
She copied files from a terminal and photographed documents from a locked cabinet.
“Who is she?” Grandma asked.
Marcus enlarged the image.
I recognized her immediately.
“Natalie Brooks.”
Natalie had been one of Apex’s first employees.
She had worked beside me when we still cleaned buildings ourselves.
Three years earlier, she had become regional operations director.
“She has access to almost everything,” Marcus said.
“Why would she betray you?”
I remembered a conversation from two weeks earlier.
Natalie had asked to become a partner.
I had refused because financial auditors discovered unexplained payments under her division.
She claimed the transactions were accounting errors.
I had ordered an internal investigation.
“She knows we are investigating her.”
Marcus nodded.
“She may be trying to damage the company before we find out what she did.”
A security officer entered the room.
“We searched Natalie’s office.”
He placed a thick envelope on the desk.
Inside were copies of contracts bearing my signature.
Except I had never signed them.
The contracts transferred millions of dollars to shell companies.
At the bottom of the envelope was a photograph.
It showed Natalie standing outside a restaurant with my father.
The date printed on the image was three months earlier.
Grandma Eleanor looked at me.
“Why was your father meeting with her?”
I did not have an answer.
Then my father called.
May you like
His first words made my blood run cold.
“Emily, there is something about Apex I should have told you years ago.”
