Remi looked at me, eyes wide. “Fuck, Ava. We are cleaning up. That’s exactly what this looks like now. Like we’re scrambling.”
“I can feel it,” I said, sitting on the desk while Remi paced. “Whatever she’s doing… it’s building.”
“She’s not just watching us,” Remi said, voice low. “She’s going in for the kill…”
“She’s laying a foundation.”
“For what?”
I swallowed hard. “I don’t know. But it won’t be good.”
So, we started documenting. Every missing form. Every altered file. Every suspicious timestamp. We printed copies, locked them in the safe, and backed up the backups.
I emailed Jack a blind CC of the audit. Just in case.
We double-checked staff entries. We reset the camera credentials. We wrote out a literal checklist of what was changed and when. We stayed up too late and got up too early. It was more work than the two of us could manage.
But we didn’t have anyone else.
Which meant no one else could be blamed.
Or spared.
My phone rang two hours after I hit send on the email to Jack.
“Hey,” I answered, voice tight.
“You sound like you haven’t slept in days.”
“I haven’t.”
“Is everything okay? I got a weird email from you.”
I hesitated. “Define okay.”
He sighed. “I called Remi. She’s not answering. Again.”
“She’s busy. And she’s dropped the gloves.”
There was a pause. “That bad?”
“She’s ready to fight dirty if she has to.”
He waited. “Ava… what’s going on?”
I stared out the clinic window, watched a car drive by too slow, too deliberate.
“I don’t know exactly,” I said. “But I can feel it. Something’s coming. Like we’re being set up for a fall we won’t see until we’re already in freefall. I sent you everything we could find, Jack.”
Jack didn’t speak for a long moment.
Then, quietly: “What does Harlan say?”
I closed my eyes.
“Harlan’s part of the problem.”
The words burned coming out.
