The train is packed with commuters heading uptown, a claustrophobic crush of damp coats and evening exhaustion. I wedge myself into a corner near the sliding doors and pull out my phone.
Twenty minutes, I text her.
She doesn't reply.
By the time I hit street level, I'm practically jogging. Sam's building is the third one from the corner, a pre-war red brick with a green awning that's seen better years. I buzz her apartment number and the intercom crackles with static.
"It's me," I say.
The heavy door clicks unlocked and I push through.
Her door is at the end of the hall. It opens before I knock.
Sam stands in the doorway, still in her work clothes but barefoot. Her hair is pulled back and there's a crease between her eyebrows that wasn't there this morning.
"Hey," she says.
"Show me."
She steps aside and I follow her into the main room. The apartment is clean. Books arranged by height, kitchen counter empty except for a coffee maker. The desk is against the far wall under a window looking out at brick. It’s covered in printouts, sticky notes, and a yellow legal pad filled with handwritten bullet points.
The main screen is blue. Error code in white text.
I set my bag down and move to stand behind her chair.
She gestures at the desk. "The hard drive failed. I called IT. They said the backup synced this morning, but when I tried to restore the files half of them came through corrupted. The presentation deck is gone. The technical appendix is gone. The rendering package is mostly gone."
"Can IT do anything? "
"Forty-eight hour turnaround for recovery. Maybe longer if the drive is physically damaged." Her hand rests on the edge of the desk, fingers tapping against the wood.
"I can't wait that long. The Board meeting is Thursday."
I crouch down next to her chair so I'm at eye level with her instead of looming. "Let me see it."
She slides the laptop toward me. I angle the screen and read the error code. It's the same one I've seen twice before on my own equipment. The files aren't corrupted. They're just locked behind a drive that stopped spinning.
"I know a guy," I say. "He does data recovery for photographers. Rush jobs. He can have this back to you by Wednesday morning."
Her eyes cut to me. "It's a company laptop. Confidential client data. Tom, if Richard finds out an unauthorized vendor touched this drive, I'm fired. It's a massive NDA violation."
"Mags recovers hard drives for paranoid fashion photographers and indie film directors. He doesn't look at the files, and he doesn't talk."
She rubs her forehead, staring at the blue screen. I can practically see the protocol-obsessed project manager fighting a war with the woman who just watched her entire presentation vanish.
"Do you want the files back or not?" I ask quietly.
She opens her mouth. Closes it. Her fingers go still against the desk.
"Yeah. I do."
"Then trust me."
She looks at me. I don't look away.
“Sam, I don't make promises I can't keep.”
She lifts her hand off the desk, officially surrendering control.
