"Call whoever you want. They'll tell you the same thing."
Diana's hand steadied as she selected a number. She turned a little away from the room, not because the conversation was secret but because the person on the other end needed to hear her clearly. After two rings, her executive assistant answered.
"Sarah, it's Diana. I need you to contact our general counsel and the board secretary immediately. This concerns a serious incident at the Beverly Hills location."
She paused while Sarah asked a question, then continued. "Yes. I'm safe. No one needs an ambulance. I need an urgent management and conduct review, and I need the relevant surveillance and transaction records preserved before anyone edits them."
Patricia listened with a tightening expression. The woman's confidence sounded different now, stripped of all the politeness that had made her easy to dismiss. She spoke like a person who knew exactly which offices existed, which records might matter, and who was authorized to receive them. Still, Patricia clung to the explanation that it must be an elaborate performance.
"Please arrange a call with the board chair and the appropriate directors," Diana said. "I'm at the flagship. You know which one. Also, have someone contact regional operations and put them on standby to provide leadership coverage if needed."
Ashley, standing beside the counter, stopped moving. The first name and voice sounded familiar, though it was the phrase "our general counsel" that made her look sharply toward Kevin. She remembered a short video shown during orientation in which the founder had spoken about jewelry as a vessel for personal memory. She had watched that video on a small laptop between training modules, never imagining she might one day stand in the same room as the woman who had spoken in it.
Kevin noticed Ashley's face and mouthed a question. She shook her head once, not to dismiss him but to ask for a moment. With Patricia distracted by Diana's call, Ashley unlocked the store tablet and opened the employee portal. Her fingers moved through the news archive until she found a recent company newsletter with a photograph on its cover.
She compared the photograph to Diana, then compared it again. The hair was styled differently, the clothing considerably more formal, and the photograph had been taken beneath studio lighting. But the eyes, the expression, and the simple silver bracelet were unmistakable. Ashley inhaled sharply and held the tablet against her chest.
"Kevin," she whispered. "You need to look at this."
He moved beside her, keeping his body between the screen and Patricia. On the newsletter's front page, beneath the company sunburst, was a portrait and a caption: Diana Mitchell, Founder and Chief Executive Officer. Kevin had seen the photograph before, but like many employees he had never studied it closely. Now, standing three yards from the woman pictured, he felt the bottom of his stomach drop.
"Oh," he said.
Ashley nodded, unable to say anything else. The discovery did not make their earlier decisions suddenly more correct; the customer had deserved the same care regardless of her identity. But it meant the conduct Patricia had demonstrated was about to become visible to the person with the greatest authority to examine it. Kevin looked at his manager, still glaring at Diana, and wanted desperately to stop her before she said anything more.