Chapter 4 - THE SILVER BRACELET
By nine the next morning, I was sitting across from the same forensic investigator who had asked whether I'd tried to bypass Summit's controls.
His name was Daniel Cho.
This time, Nolan and Judith were with me.
And this time, I had brought evidence.
The laptop.
The photographs.
The envelope.
The loan agreement.
The fake bank statement.
Daniel examined everything without giving me much of his face.
That was probably something investigators learned.
Never let the person across from you know when they've changed your mind.
But when he reached the metadata from the Vendor Compliance scanner, his pen stopped.
“Where did you obtain this computer?”
“My home.”
“Has anyone besides you used it?”
“My husband gave it to Marissa Keene for one night.”
Nolan spoke before Daniel could ask.
“I did. Without Tessa's knowledge.”
Daniel looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because Ms. Keene told me she believed Tessa's credentials might have been compromised and she wanted to help.”
“Did she identify herself as acting officially for Summit?”
Nolan went still.
“No.”
“Did you ask?”
“No.”
Daniel wrote that down.
Judith shifted beside me.
For the first time since this began, nobody in the room was questioning me.
They were questioning the people who had believed Marissa.
It should have felt good.
It didn't.
Daniel reached the note in the envelope.
GM has the floor.
His expression changed slightly.
“You believe GM means Grant Mercer?”
“Yes.”
He studied the page.
Then he asked, “Why?”
“He's my director.”
Daniel leaned back.
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Then don't make that leap yet.”
I almost snapped at him.
Instead, I waited.
Daniel left the room.
When he returned forty minutes later, another investigator came with him.
A woman named Celia Ramos.
She carried a thin folder.
Celia sat down.
“We pulled archived access logs for May 14.”
My hands tightened in my lap.
Daniel slid one page toward me.
“At 6:01 p.m., Summit entered a scheduled Gateway Maintenance period.”
I looked at the words.
Gateway Maintenance.
GM.
Celia continued.
“For eighteen minutes, certain internal authorization services operated under a temporary continuity protocol.”
I stared at her.
“Meaning?”
“Employees with already active authenticated sessions would not receive the usual secondary prompt for some approval actions.”
Nolan swore under his breath.
I looked at the handwritten note again.
GM has the floor.
It didn't mean Grant Mercer.
It meant Gateway Maintenance.
Marissa hadn't been writing about my boss at all.
She had been writing about a system weakness.
A narrow one.
An eighteen-minute window.
And the fraudulent authorization occurred at 6:11.
Right in the middle of it.
One answer.
Two new questions.
How had Marissa known about that window?
And how had she gained access to an active session under my name?
Celia opened the folder.
“We also reviewed retained security footage.”
She placed a photograph on the table.
The image was grainy.
A woman stood near the elevator on my floor.
Her face was turned away.
She wore dark trousers.
A white blouse.
Her hair was pulled back.
Nothing distinctive.
Then I saw her left wrist.
A silver bracelet.
Five small charms.
A moon.
A book.
A tiny blue stone.
A horseshoe.
And a miniature key.
My stomach twisted.
“No.”
Nolan looked at me.
“What?”
“I gave her that.”
“Who?”
“Marissa.”
Freshman year of college.
Her twenty-first birthday.
I had saved for two months to buy that bracelet.
Over the years I had added charms for birthdays.
The book when she finished her master's degree.
The horseshoe after she survived a terrible year at her first job.
The little key when she bought her condo.
My best friend was standing outside my office on May 14.
At 6:17 p.m.
I looked closer.
She was carrying something against her side.
Rectangular.
Bright even in the washed-out security image.
Red.
My planner.
The room seemed to tilt.
Daniel said quietly, “We cannot identify an employee solely from jewelry.”
“I can.”
“I understand.”
“No. You don't. I bought every charm on that bracelet.”
Celia put down another still.
This one came from a camera farther down the corridor.
6:08 p.m.
Marissa was walking toward my office.
Nobody else was near her.
At 6:21, she walked away.
My red planner under her arm.
Daniel said, “That supports unauthorized access to your workspace.”
“Supports?”
“It is not yet proof she initiated the transfers.”
“What more do you need?”
“A financial trail.”
I wanted to scream.
Instead, I looked at the image again.
My best friend had gone into my office while I sat in a meeting downstairs.
She had known the system maintenance window.
She had taken my planner.
Then she had spent weeks telling my family she was trying to save me.
Celia pushed another report toward Daniel.
He read it.
Then looked at me.
“We also obtained the receiving-bank information for the May 14 transfer.”
My pulse jumped.
“Whose account?”
He hesitated.
Not long.
But enough for fear to return.
“The account holder is listed as Tessa Whitmore.”
I stared at him.
“That isn't possible.”
“The account was opened nine months ago.”
“I didn't open it.”
“It contains your date of birth.”
My mouth went dry.
“Your current address.”
Nolan reached for my hand.
I pulled mine away without thinking.
Daniel continued.
“And a scanned copy of your passport.”
Nobody spoke.
The fake bank statement Marissa had shown Judith had not been completely fake after all.
The account existed.
It held money stolen from Summit.
And it had been built in my name months before I ever wrote vendor 4187 in a red planner.
May you like
Which meant Marissa had not started framing me when I got too close to the truth.
She had chosen me long before that.
