Lena read the last phrase twice. She had heard promises like that before, usually made in training videos and forgotten the moment a supervisor felt challenged. At her last job, a cashier had reported a manager's behavior and lost her preferred shifts the following week. Lena needed the salary at Sterling, had a younger brother beginning college, and could not afford to become an example in somebody else's lesson about courage.
At ten fifteen Naomi invited her into a small office upstairs. The investigator was an Indian American employment lawyer in her early fifties, plainly dressed, calm, and meticulous. She placed a glass of water on the table and explained the interview procedure, including who would receive the notes and what protections the company could honestly provide.
"I can tell you that retaliation is prohibited and will be investigated," Naomi said. "I can't promise no one will ever be unkind. I can promise we're going to document what happens after you speak, not only what happened before."
Lena looked down at her hands. "People here have been afraid of Mr. Croft for months. If you ask everyone in a group, they're going to tell you he's demanding but successful. If you ask them separately, you'll hear something different."
Naomi nodded. "That's why you're here separately. Start wherever you feel comfortable."
Lena began with Saturday and then moved backward. She described a Black American couple who had visited in work uniforms after finishing a restaurant shift; Croft ordered her not to create a customer file because he said their inquiry would waste follow-up time. She described a warehouse owner who arrived in a dusty pickup and waited nearly half an hour for assistance until his accountant called to confirm a wire transfer for a different purchase. Only then did Croft become interested in the man.
There were examples in the other direction too. Well-dressed visitors received champagne, appointments that ran past closing, and repeated calls even when they openly admitted they were browsing. Lena had begun to understand that the gallery did not really have a standard for qualifying customers. It had a standard for rewarding appearances, and Croft expected employees to imitate him.
"Did he ever put those expectations in writing?" Naomi asked.
"Some of it. He sent a spreadsheet about priority leads. But the worse things were said aloud. He'd stand by the door and tell us who was worth following and who wasn't."
Naomi asked for the spreadsheet, then waited while Lena gathered the courage to say something she had not planned to mention. "Mrs. Bennett wasn't the first older person he spoke to like that. She was just the first person who didn't leave before anyone important saw it."
In the service department, Evan Price told a similar story. He remembered being reprimanded for giving vehicle specifications to a young man who arrived on a bicycle and spent forty minutes asking detailed questions about an engine configuration. Two months later, the young man returned with his father and bought a vehicle from an entirely different salesperson because Evan had been told to avoid him. Croft praised the closing sale and never acknowledged that the original inquiry had been worth answering.