Chapter 12 - OUTSIDE THE BUILDING
Being removed from your own company teaches you which doors were never really yours.
My badge stopped working before I reached Chicago.
Security met me in the lobby of Blackwell Tower.
'Sorry, sir.'
'You're doing your job.'
June stood beside me in a borrowed coat.
Employees gathered behind the glass turnstiles.
Housekeepers.
Drivers.
Maintenance workers.
Cooks.
Some lifted their phones.
Others simply watched.
Natalie appeared on the mezzanine above us.
'Declan, this is unnecessary.'
I looked up.
'So was stealing wages.'
She smiled as if I had proved her point.
'You have turned an accounting dispute into theater.'
June stepped forward.
'You took money from my kids.'
Natalie's smile vanished.
'I don't discuss personnel matters publicly.'
'You didn't mind taking my money privately.'
The lobby erupted.
Not shouting at first.
Clapping.
Then voices.
Workers began naming deductions.
Placement reserve.
Safety bond.
Emergency insurance.
Training recovery.
Different words.
Same missing money.
Claire Donovan arrived with state investigators and a warrant for payroll servers.
Natalie tried to block access.
She failed.
By evening, investigators had enough to identify 1,842 affected workers across Illinois and Wisconsin.
Estimated theft: twenty-three million dollars.
Far more than our first count.
Then Grace called me from her apartment.
'I found the second ledger.'
'What second ledger?'
'One that doesn't track what they took.'
'What does it track?'
'What they did with people who complained.'
The file contained codes beside employee names.
R - reassigned.
T - terminated.
D - debt pressure.
And beside several names:
CPS.
June went white.
'Child Protective Services?'
Grace nodded.
At the bottom of the list was June Carter.
May you like
Her status had been changed that morning.
From ACTIVE to CPS REVIEW.
