Chapter 3 - The Locked Supply Room.
At six the next morning, Adrian was already awake.
He had not slept more than an hour.
The payroll report on his desk explained why.
Marcus stood across from him with a tablet in one hand.
“There are two sets of records.”
Adrian looked up.
“One official?”
“One sent to your office every month.”
“And the other?”
Marcus’s expression hardened.
“The one staff actually get paid from.”
More than thirty employees had unexplained deductions.
The amounts were small enough to avoid attention individually.
Together, they added up to nearly eighty thousand dollars over eighteen months.
Adrian stared at the figures.
“Where did the money go?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Find out.”
Marcus hesitated.
“There’s something else.”
He placed a printed time sheet on the desk.
Emma’s name appeared beside several overnight shifts.
Twenty-two hours in one weekend.
Adrian’s voice became colder.
“Who authorized this?”
“Celeste’s digital signature.”
Adrian turned his wheelchair toward the door.
They found Emma in the guest corridor, fully dressed in a clean black-and-white uniform despite being ordered to rest.
She was carrying folded towels.
Adrian stopped directly in front of her.
“What part of day off was unclear?”
Emma tightened her grip on the towels.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“So you decided to work?”
“I didn’t know what else to do.”
He studied her face.
The bruise looked darker in the morning light.
“Tell me about the archive room.”
Emma looked toward the staircase.
“Not here.”
Adrian followed her gaze.
A security camera pointed directly at them.
He had installed it himself after the accident that put him in the wheelchair.
Now he wondered who else had access to the feed.
“Marcus.”
“I’m on it.”
They moved to the library, where there were no cameras.
Emma placed the towels on a chair.
“Three nights ago, Mrs. Harrow sent me to clean a storage room in the west hall.”
Adrian frowned.
“There is no assigned storage room there.”
“I know that now.”
She told him the door had already been unlocked.
Inside were old filing boxes, payroll envelopes, maintenance invoices, and several folders bearing the Vale Foundation seal.
“I thought I was supposed to dust the shelves.”
“What happened?”
“I knocked over a box.”
Documents spilled across the floor.
Emma had started putting them back when she noticed her own name.
Not on payroll.
On a list marked DISCRETIONARY RELIEF RECIPIENTS.
Adrian’s eyes narrowed.
The Vale Foundation helped families facing housing emergencies, medical costs, and temporary unemployment.
Emma had never applied for assistance.
“How much?”
“Twelve thousand dollars.”
“Did you receive any of it?”
“No.”
Adrian looked toward Marcus.
Marcus was already typing.
Emma continued.
“There were other staff names too.”
“How many?”
“I saw at least fourteen.”
She reached into her apron pocket.
Adrian expected another key.
Instead, she placed a folded piece of paper on the table.
It was a photocopy of a transfer authorization.
At the bottom was Adrian’s signature.
He looked at it once.
“That isn’t mine.”
Emma’s face tightened.
“I know.”
Adrian looked up sharply.
“How?”
“Because whoever copied it forgot something.”
She turned the page around.
The signature showed Adrian Vale in long, sweeping handwriting.
Emma pointed to the final letter.
“Every note you leave for staff signs your name with a short final stroke.”
Adrian stared at her.
She had noticed something his accountants had not.
Marcus’s phone buzzed.
He read the message and looked up.
“The archive camera was erased between 2:11 and 3:03 this morning.”
Emma went pale.
May you like
Adrian’s eyes moved toward the locked library door.
Then someone tried the handle from the other side.
