Chapter 2 - THE JANITOR WAS NEVER INVISIBLE
The click of the locks was soft.
It still made half the room flinch.
Grant looked toward the doors. “What is this?”
“My security team,” Thomas said. “Not yours.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
Thomas nodded toward Maya. “Put the folders down. Sit beside Helen.”
Maya moved carefully, afraid that if she walked too quickly she might wake up.
Six weeks ago she had seen the old janitor cleaning fingerprints from elevator doors. She had said good morning. He had asked whether the coffee in the cafeteria was always that bad.
She had laughed.
Three days later he had helped her pick up a box of audit reports when the bottom tore open.
She had never imagined she was speaking to the founder.
Thomas watched the executives instead of her.
“For six weeks,” he said, “I cleaned conference rooms after you left them. I emptied trash cans beside people discussing layoffs they had not announced. I rode service elevators with contractors you never learned the names of. I ate lunch with security guards, receptionists, assistants, and technicians.”
He looked at Adrian.
“I learned more about Bellwether with a mop in my hand than I learned from eighteen months of board reports.”
Grant crossed his arms. “If this is some kind of morality performance—”
“It isn’t.”
Thomas placed a tiny recorder on the table.
“It’s an audit.”
The room shifted.
Helen stared at the device.
Thomas continued. “Twenty-seven anonymous complaints disappeared from our ethics system in eight months. Four engineers were fired after reporting irregularities in the Helix platform. Human Resources classified each departure as performance-related. Three of those employees had excellent reviews until the week they complained.”
Grant’s expression remained controlled.
“You have been ill, Thomas. You may not have the full context.”
“Careful.”
Grant stopped.
Thomas’s voice stayed quiet. “Concern about my health becomes less touching when I discover your office has been drafting a competency petition.”
Maya looked up sharply.
Adrian glanced at Grant.
Too quickly.
Thomas saw it.
“So that part is true.”
“No one is trying to remove you,” Grant said.
Thomas gave him a tired smile. “Then the document titled Emergency Removal of Chairman Bell must be a birthday card.”
Helen lowered her eyes.
Maya felt cold.
She knew that title.
She had seen it.
Not the whole document. Just a file name on a restricted server while helping a senior analyst repair broken permissions.
At the time she had assumed it was old.
Thomas noticed her face.
“You know something.”
Every executive turned toward her.
Maya’s throat tightened.
Adrian spoke first.
“No, she doesn’t.”
Thomas looked at him. “I did not ask you.”
Maya stared at her hands.
She needed this internship.
Her mother had taken a second job to help pay tuition. Her father had been unemployed for eleven months. Bellwether on her résumé could change everything.
Adrian leaned forward.
“Think very carefully before you answer.”
Thomas did not raise his voice.
“Mr. Cross, threaten her again and you will spend the rest of this meeting explaining yourself to outside counsel.”
Maya took a breath.
“I saw the file name.”
Grant’s eyes narrowed.
“When?” Thomas asked.
“Three weeks ago.”
“Where?”
“On the executive compliance server.”
Helen looked stunned. “Interns cannot access that server.”
“I wasn’t supposed to. A permissions update exposed folders for about ninety seconds.”
“What else did you see?”
Maya hesitated.
Then she said the name that changed the room again.
“Project Lantern.”
Grant pushed back from the table so hard his chair struck the glass wall.
Thomas did not move.
But his eyes sharpened.
“What is Project Lantern?” he asked.
Maya looked at Grant.
“I don’t know.”
Then she remembered the spreadsheet attached beneath it.
Her mouth went dry.
May you like
“But I know my father’s name was inside it.”
