was being handled internally. Another listed meetings and workshops that no one on the finance team could confirm had taken place. Graham had signed broad emergency authorizations on Elliot's assurances, a fact that now filled him with fear because he knew his signature would appear on documents he had never examined closely enough.
He called the head of procurement and asked for the underlying invoices, service descriptions, and approval trail. The manager sounded surprised, then wary. She explained that several contracts had been designated executive confidential and had been handled directly by the chief executive's office. Graham instructed her not to delete or alter anything and to send the records through normal finance controls. After the call, he sat for a long time looking at the spreadsheet, understanding that he had allowed urgency to replace independent judgment long before the company's finances reached their present crisis.
Wednesday morning began badly for Darius Cole. At seven-thirty, he entered the building security office and found David Park seated beside a manila folder. David's greeting was warm in the artificial way people become warm when they are about to demand something unpleasant. He said the legal department required a written account of Tuesday's lobby incident for the company's liability file. Then he slid a prewritten statement across the desk and asked Darius to read it before signing.
The statement described Mariah refusing to identify herself, raising her voice, and behaving aggressively toward reception staff. It claimed security intervention had been necessary because she attempted to force her way toward restricted elevators. Darius read it twice, hoping he had somehow misunderstood the wording. He could remember the incident in unusually sharp detail: Mariah's patient request for a phone call, Elliot's escalating insults, the pressure of his own hand against her sleeve, and Graham running out of the elevator in panic. The statement contradicted what he had seen and what the company-issued incident camera had recorded.
"I can't sign this," he said. "It isn't accurate."
David leaned forward. "The legal team drafted it from the information available. We need consistent documentation, Darius. We don't want personal interpretations becoming part of a lawsuit."
Darius told him that accuracy was not a personal interpretation. David's expression cooled, and he reminded Darius that the company had been a stable employer for fifteen years. He mentioned the benefit package that helped support Darius's wife's medical recovery and the pension Darius had worked so long to secure.
Darius had no illusions about what the conversation meant. His wife, Carmen, was recovering from major knee surgery after an accident, and complications had made physical therapy both slower and more expensive than they expected. The treatment bills were a serious burden even with insurance, and Darius's salary paid the mortgage on their modest house. He also knew that a company could not simply erase vested retirement benefits because a guard refused to sign a false report. But people who made threats did not always need their threats to be lawful in order to frighten someone into obedience.