He said, not accusatory, just the question. I knew that someone in the executive suite had been accessing systems they shouldn't have been accessing, she said. I didn't know who. I had suspicions, but I didn't have proof. And after 27 years in this building, I have learned that suspicions without proof can end careers.
She paused. Mine or anyone else's? So, you warned me without telling me what you were warning me about? Yes, she said. And I've regretted it every day since you've walked into that break room.
Because if I had said more, if I had been braver, maybe you wouldn't have spent this morning being marched out of a building you've protected for 5 years. Andre was quiet for a moment. You didn't create this situation, Evelyn, he said. No, but I could have helped end it sooner. Maybe, he said.
Or maybe Caldwell would have found another way. People like him always find another way. He looked toward the elevators. The important thing is it's done. Evelyn reached over and put her hand briefly on his arm.
Just for a second, the way people do when words aren't quite enough and they need something physical to carry the weight. You have people in this building who see you," she said. "More than you know, more than you've ever probably let yourself believe." He didn't respond to that, but he didn't dismiss it either. At 10:47 in the morning, 3 hours and 30 minutes after Clare Whitmore had told him to take his badge and get out, Andre Williams was handed a visitor badge by the front desk security officer and told that Richard Witmore was requesting his presence on the executive floor.
He looked at the visitor badge, turned it over in his hand. The irony was thick enough to taste. He clipped it to his shirt and took the elevator up. The executive floor had a different quality now. The usual orchestrated efficiency, the assistant stations, the glasswalled conference rooms.
The sense of controlled forward momentum had been replaced by something more subdued. People were at their desks, but not working. Not really. They were processing the way an office processes when something seismic happens and the aftershock hasn't fully settled. Priya met him at the elevator.
Mr. Whitmore is in the main conference room. She said, she hesitated. For what it's worth, I didn't believe it this morning when they said it was you. I didn't believe it. Andre looked at her.
She was young, mid-ents probably, and she had the specific discomfort of someone who had witnessed an injustice and had not been in a position to stop it. Thank you, he said. That matters. She nodded and led him down the corridor. Richard Whitmore was not alone in the main conference room.
Clare was there seated to her father's left, and Harris was there with one of her colleagues, and there was a man Andre didn't recognize. 50s silver at his temples. the particular stillness of someone who listens for a living. He was introduced simply as James Carver and the business card he slid across the table said corporate legal counsel Whitmore Capital Group. Andre sat down. Richard spoke first.