Chapter 2 - ELEVEN WEEKS EARLIER
On Maya’s first day at Whitmore Systems, Claire handed her a stack of folders and pointed to a copy room down the hall.
“Forty sets. Bound. By nine.”
“It’s eight fifty-three.”
“Then I guess you’d better hurry.”
Maya carried the folders away without answering. Her temporary badge identified her as a summer intern in corporate strategy. It got her into three floors of the building and almost no meetings.
That was the point.
Three months earlier, Maya’s mother had died after a long illness. While going through her things, Maya found a box of papers belonging to her grandfather, Samuel Reed. Samuel had founded a small engineering firm that developed software for hospital supply chains. Whitmore Systems bought it twelve years ago.
The official story was simple: Samuel sold his company, retired, and lost most of the proceeds in a failed investment.
The papers told a different story. There were notes about missing royalty payments, a licensing agreement Samuel said had been changed after he signed it, and a letter he had written to Richard Whitmore.
Richard had never answered.
Maya was a finance graduate, not a detective. She took the papers to an attorney. The attorney found questions worth asking but said they needed records from inside Whitmore to prove anything.
Then Maya saw a summer internship listing.
She applied under her real name. Richard Whitmore’s company had employed thousands of people since the acquisition, and she doubted anyone reviewing intern applications would remember Samuel Reed’s granddaughter.
She was right.
For the first five weeks, Maya made coffee, fixed slides, and took notes nobody asked to see. She also learned where people left documents, who had access to old contracts, and how often senior executives discussed confidential business in front of someone they believed was too young to understand it.
One Tuesday, Claire walked into the copy room while Maya was sorting archived files.
“My father says you’re bright,” Claire said.
Maya kept her eyes on the folders. “That’s nice of him.”
“He says that about interns every summer.” Claire leaned against the doorframe. “Don’t mistake it for an invitation.”
Maya found a yellow tab sticking out of a folder. Its label made her pulse jump.
REED HEALTH LOGISTICS — LEGACY RIGHTS.
She slid the folder beneath the others.
Claire noticed.
“What’s that?”
“Old acquisition material.”
Claire took a step closer. “Then why are your hands shaking?”
Maya looked her in the eye. “Because you’ve been standing in the doorway for three minutes, and I still have forty sets to finish.”
Claire’s expression hardened.
That evening, Maya opened the folder.
Inside was a signed agreement with her grandfather’s name at the bottom. The page listing the royalty rate had been replaced.
May you like
And in the margin, someone had written three words:
RICHARD APPROVED THIS.
