Corin glances up from his laptop. “Where are you going?”
“Storage area. The one where we keep the archived foundation files.” I grab my legal pad out of habit, even though I’m not entirely sure what I’m looking for. “Thought I’d take a look again.”
“You don’t have to do that,” he says slowly. “It’s better if you stay out of the foundation—”
There it is. The control again. Trying to “protect me” again.
Going to have to have a little chat with him about that soon...
“I know,” I interrupt. “But I’m here. And basically done for the day. Might as well use my remaining time productively.”
He sighs, then nods. Once. “Third filing cabinet on the right. Bottom drawer. That’s where the older board correspondence is archived.”
I head into the cramped storage area and find the third cabinet on the right and yank open the bottom drawer.
I start rifling through folders.
Board minutes from three years ago. Financial audits from the foundation’s early days. Email threads about donor outreach and grant applications.
Nothing that looks remotely like the kind of forged documents Corin described.
I spend a good twenty minutes going through every folder in that drawer, then the drawer above it for good measure. My fingers are covered in dust and my knees hurt from crouching on the concrete floor, and I’ve found exactly zero smoking guns.
When I emerge back into the main office, Corin looks up with a question in his eyes.
I shake my head. “Didn’t see anything useful, yet. Just old correspondence and audit reports.”
“Thanks for trying.” His voice is quiet.
“We’ll keep looking,” I tell him.
He flashes a wistful smile that tells me he has no intention of actually letting me do that. “Of course. Anyway, I think we should call it a day.”
“Probably.” I start packing up my tote. I managed to survive my thick wool outfit, not to mention Corin, and I didn’t sweat too much or suffer from heat stroke to boot.
Small wins, right?
Just wish I could’ve found some evidence against Xavier in the storage area. But it’s probably going to take a lot more than a quick half hour at the end of the work day to drum something up. Corin probably has whole teams of people dedicated to scouring digital versions of those documents already...
Speaking of Corin, he closes his laptop and stands now, too, gathering his own things.
In the main room, Marisol has already gone home.
We walk out together into the late afternoon heat. My rental car is parked three spots down from where Keon waits with the SUV.
I’m fishing my keys from my tote when Corin says: “Will you be at the clinic tomorrow morning?”
“That’s generally how employment contracts work,” I reply.
The corner of his mouth twitches. “Right. That’s why you came at two today.”
I shrug. “Today I was operating on Island Time.”
That finally gets a laugh out of him. “We’ll make an Eleutheran out of you yet!”
I unlock my car door, toss my tote onto the passenger seat. The interior feels like it’s nine thousand degrees. Should’ve parked in the shade, should’ve worn a sun dress. Hindsight, etc.
Corin hasn’t moved. He’s just standing there. “Amara.”
