"Who signed off?"
"Procurement approved the vendor, but the business justification came from Blaine's office. Finance paid the invoices based on the certifications supplied. We also found a conflict-of-interest questionnaire with an unanswered section that should have triggered follow-up."
"Did someone notice?"
"Yes. A procurement analyst raised a question fourteen months ago. The review was closed after Blaine's office provided a general explanation."
Another buried warning. Another person who had spoken, been answered with authority, and been expected to accept that authority as proof.
Vivian asked Dana to expand the legal review to the vendor arrangements. She instructed the team to preserve every relevant record and contact Nicholas Voss through counsel rather than through a private conversation. She did not want investigators taking shortcuts merely because their subject had done so. The company's credibility would depend on what it could prove, not what Vivian privately believed.
Blaine learned about the Greystone inquiry two days later. His attorney called Dana requesting clarification of its scope. He had the right to representation and to respond. Vivian did not dispute that. But Blaine also began calling people who had worked with him, describing the investigation as a misunderstanding caused by an emotional former employee. One manager forwarded the call details to Dana because the instruction not to influence witnesses had been explicit. Another manager quietly admitted that Blaine had offered to help him find a new job if he would confirm that Callan was difficult and unreliable.
The board committee responded by placing Blaine on paid administrative leave pending further review, removing his access to internal systems and directing him to communicate about the investigation only through counsel. He left headquarters from a side entrance without a speech. The absence of the man who had once dominated every meeting was noticeable in the same way a loud refrigerator becomes noticeable when it finally stops humming. People kept waiting for the sound to resume.
At home in a glass-walled apartment overlooking the river, Blaine watched business news on a muted television. He owned beautiful things: rare watches, tailored suits, a sports car that seldom left the garage, and a dining table large enough for twelve guests though he rarely invited anyone over. He had spent his adult life constructing the appearance of success. Now the possibility of losing his title frightened him more than the actual professional consequences he had yet faced.
His father had worked in a factory and had once told him that rich people did not become rich by waiting to be thanked. Blaine had turned that sentence into permission to take what he believed the world owed him. At first it meant negotiating hard for pay. Later it meant claiming leadership over work other people had created. Eventually it meant convincing himself that the company's survival depended on his ability to bend inconvenient procedures. It was not a dramatic descent he had noticed. It was a thousand small decisions made easier by the fact that people applauded their results.