Anyone who asked could verify her in seconds.
Nobody had asked yet.
Instead, they had assumed.
At 9:05, one receptionist approached while Willa stood near the coffee service.
“Ma’am, are you trying to find the Salesforce networking event?”
“No.”
“That’s on the second floor.”
“I’m aware.”
The receptionist remained there.
Willa finally looked at her.
“I’m attending this summit.”
“Oh.”
The woman gave a small embarrassed smile.
“Of course.”
Then walked away.
She did not offer Willa a program.
Did not mention where the keynote hall was.
Did not ask whether she needed assistance.
Willa noticed that too.
Near the elevator bank stood a hotel security guard.
He watched her.
Willa checked the time the first moment she became sure.
Nine seventeen.
At nine twenty-eight, he was still watching.
Eleven minutes.
She counted because counting gave observation structure.
Willa had made a career from separating instinct from evidence.
One uncomfortable glance might mean nothing.
Eleven minutes meant something.
She sat down in the VIP lounge and opened the fourteenth pitch deck she had reviewed that week.
The file belonged to Prism Dynamics.
Garrett Sinclair’s company.
Willa did not know that when she opened it.
Not yet.
Prism Dynamics was an artificial-intelligence infrastructure startup founded three years earlier by Garrett Sinclair and Brad Collins.
The company had raised nineteen million dollars in its Series A.