Someone let him in, he said. The badge log will tell us who. She paused. But Marcus, the fact that he went to you instead of leaving, that tells me something. He wanted to see my face, Marcus said slowly.
He wanted to know whether I knew what he'd been asked to do, whether I understood the full shape of it. Did you? Not until this conversation, he looked at her. Raymond wasn't running this. He was a conduit.
Someone told him what to do with my flag and he did it. But he didn't engineer the number changes himself. He doesn't have that kind of system access. No, Amelia said he doesn't. Caldwell does or Penn does or someone they contracted.
She didn't confirm or deny it, but the angle of her silence was its own answer. Their food came. Neither of them had ordered consciously. Priya had apparently handled it because plates appeared and they were correct. And Marcus ate without tasting anything, which was fine because eating was maintenance and maintenance was what you did when the work wasn't finished.
"There's something else," Amelia said. Midway through the meal, he waited. "The board has formally requested that I provide a list of any personal relationships that might constitute conflicts of interest in this audit process," she said. She kept her voice even factual, standard procedure. When a fraud investigation opens.
They want to make sure no one involved in the audit has a personal stake in the outcome. He understood immediately. They're going to ask about us, he said. Yes. She met his eyes and I want to be transparent with you before that happens, not after.
So, I'm telling you now. Marcus set down his fork. This was the part he'd been aware of in the background since Friday morning. The part he'd let stay in the background because there'd been more immediate things to address. Things with document trails and system logs and board votes, but this part had always been there.
The fundamental complication of what they were to each other, which was still largely undefined, was also now officially visible. What are you going to tell them? He said the truth, she said. Simply that we are colleagues who have developed a mutual regard, that I made a professional judgment to include you in this process because your information and because your integrity is the reason that information survived, that there is no romantic relationship that would compromise either of our roles in this investigation. She held his gaze, all of which is accurate.
He nodded. Okay. Okay. She tilted her head slightly. That's it.