He stiffened a fraction, but it was enough.“It wasn’t like that.”
“Explain it to me,” she said.
He blew out a breath.“The supervisor said we were low on mop heads.He told me they were in storage, so I went looking.”
“In a locked electrical room?”
His cheeks flushed.“I didn’t see the sign at first.The light was weird.”
“The light,” she repeated, “was weird.”
He nodded vigorously.“Yeah.Glare off the hallway tiles.I thought it was the maintenance closet.”
Anja tilted her head a fraction, a sign she was listening, not judging.“Okay.Then how’d you get in?”
“I, uh,” he stalled.“I had the wrong keys.Stu must’ve handed me the wrong set.”
She hummed, as if that tracked.“Stu Winthrop, right?”
He blinked.“Yeah.”
“Couple years older than you?”
He nodded.
“You two close?”
“Just coworkers.”
“Ever borrow keys from him before?”
“No.”
“Ever needed to go into that hallway before?”
“No.”
“Ever needed mop heads before today?”
No answer this time.The color climbed his neck.He understood now.Anja let the silence sit between them, heavy and patient, giving him room to squirm without pushing.Then she softened her shoulders and broke the tension with a small, sympathetic breath.“Joel, mistakes happen.People grab the wrong keys all the time.”
Relief cracked across his face so cleanly it almost made her smile.
She didn’t.
“But,” she added gently, “from what I understand, you didn’t stop at one key.You kept trying.”
Joel swallowed.“I didn’t want to go back and ask again.Stu was already irritated.I thought maybe I was just misremembering the door.”
Anja nodded once.“So you kept trying because you didn’t want to look foolish.”
He latched onto that like a lifeline.“Yes.Exactly.I didn’t want to look like an idiot.”
“Joel.”She lowered her voice, shifting her tone to kind, human.“You do understand what’s going on here, right?Someone stole equipment.People are being threatened.”She didn’t mention Chloe to him.If he wasn’t the perp, he didn’t need to know what was going on.
His eyes widened in genuine surprise.“I didn’t know that.Nobody told us.”
“It’s confidential,” she said softly.“But behavior thatlookswrong, especially around restricted areas, gets attention.”
