She began with Marcus Williams, an accountant who had questioned consulting invoices three months earlier. His original performance review described him as thorough and dependable, but after he raised concerns about vendor payments, a replacement evaluation accused him of poor judgment and insubordination. Talia had seen both versions while coordinating executive approvals, and she had preserved authorized copies of the review history before the record was changed. Marcus had been transferred to a junior role, losing both responsibility and the confidence of coworkers who assumed management must have had reasons.
Then there was Janet Rodriguez in human resources. She had filed a complaint after senior managers repeatedly mocked her accent during meetings, but the complaint had disappeared from the ordinary tracking system. When Janet requested a receipt for the report, she was told the company had no record of it. Other employees had been reassigned after reporting discriminatory jokes, passed over for positions they were qualified to fill, or labeled difficult after questioning the way ideas were credited in meetings. Talia had begun keeping a private list of discrepancies because the company's official explanations rarely matched what she had personally witnessed.
"Have you reported these concerns to the board?" Mariah asked.
"Some of us tried," Talia replied. "Complaints go through managers who know the executives involved. Then someone tells you the matter was investigated, but there's no record of anyone speaking to the people who were there. After a while, staff learn that silence is safer than procedure."
She stared at her tablet for a moment. "I don't think this is one bad decision. I think they've made the same decision so often they don't recognize it anymore."
Talia showed her a message from Elliot that had been circulated to selected senior staff before the investor meeting. It identified a major investment group named Bellamy and included disparaging language about outsiders buying their way into the company, followed by a remark implying the arrangement had been engineered for appearances rather than merit. Mariah recognized in the wording the same assumptions Elliot had displayed in the lobby. The email did not prove that Elliot knew what she looked like, and Mariah was careful about that distinction. It proved he had received enough information to recognize her name and had chosen contempt before their first meeting.
"Why are you showing me this?" Mariah asked.
Talia looked out across Chicago, where tiny cars moved along the street far below the glass. "Because every time someone is pushed out, everybody else gets quieter," she said.
"I have watched people with children and mortgages apologize for things they never did just to keep their paychecks. I know you have the resources to walk away. We don't." She swallowed before adding, "If the company collapses, we lose our jobs anyway. I'd rather know I told the truth while there was still a chance to change something."
Mariah did not promise that truth would keep Talia safe. She knew too much about corporate retaliation to offer comfort she could not guarantee. Instead, she gave Talia the contact information for Nadine Porter, an outside attorney whose practice included employment and corporate governance investigations, and warned her not to access files outside her role or remove patient information. Anything she already possessed would need to be preserved lawfully and documented with counsel. Talia nodded, relieved not to be told to send everything to an unprotected email address.