For the first month, Summit's employees behaved as though Warren might walk back through the doors at any moment. People lowered their voices when discussing complaints, and some declined interviews because they did not believe promises about confidentiality. Therese understood that mistrust. She had spent years telling visitors she would look into problems that she had no power to fix, and even now she resisted the urge to make reassurances bigger than her authority.
A young engineer came to her office one Tuesday afternoon with a story about being turned away from a client meeting because his name had been entered incorrectly in the visitor system. He had stopped raising the issue after his supervisor told him that complaining would make him appear difficult. Therese wrote down the date, asked permission to obtain the relevant records, and explained who would review the complaint. She did not promise the answer before anyone had checked the evidence.
"I thought you were going to tell me it was an isolated incident," the engineer said.
"It might have been a mistake," Therese replied. "But if it was, we still need to know why it happened. And if it wasn't, you deserve an honest answer about that, too."
The independent assessment of the visitor system confirmed that the P flag had been used to impose additional scrutiny based on categories with no defensible security rationale. It also identified cases in which the flag had been transmitted to vendor-screening tools, resulting in unfair exclusions from bid opportunities. Not every one of Therese's 212 entries could be corroborated, and not every vendor who had been excluded would have won a contract. The findings were nevertheless serious enough to require the retirement of the profiling tool, a redesign of the vendor qualification process, and a documented review of specific harms.
Rory advised the board to publish a carefully worded account of what had been established and what remained under investigation. Daniel agreed, despite warnings from a communications consultant that admitting any failure would damage the company's reputation. He thought of Warren's habit of calling all criticism a smear and decided that hiding behind polished language would make the new management indistinguishable from the old. Acknowledging evidence was not the same as surrendering the ability to defend the company fairly.
The board created a remediation process overseen by people outside the original screening chain. Vendors could request a review of exclusion records, see the reasons documented for a decision, and submit evidence that an opportunity had been denied without proper grounds. Where financial losses could be supported, the process allowed for compensation or negotiated remedies subject to legal review. Where the proper remedy was a chance to compete, the company offered a fair evaluation rather than an automatically awarded contract.
Emeka Okoye returned to Summit three months after Warren's removal. This time, the invitation included a named contact, an independent review process, and a clear explanation of what the company wanted to assess. He arrived with the same engineering diagrams he had carried on his previous visit, updated with work his firm had completed elsewhere while Summit kept its doors closed. Therese greeted him at reception and scanned his credential without hesitation.
"You're all set, Mr. Okoye," she said. "Your meeting is on thirty-two. Would you like someone to guide you there?"