At the Charity Evening My Older Sister Humiliated Me, but the Sight of My Place Made Her Smile Suddenly Disappear

At the moment when I saw a copy of my missing report in Serena Vale’s folder, I realized that something far more dangerous than money was happening in that hall.

Serena placed her finger on the sheet crossed out with red ink.

“It says on it: ‘Do not forward to the executive director.’”

I was still looking at Nessa’s yellow paper flower. The girl had given it to Serena a few minutes earlier, and now the flower lay beside my plate, as if it were the only real thing in that luxurious hall.

“I prepared this report,” I said quietly.

“I know.”

“And you saw it?”

“I did not only see it. I read it.”

The yellowish stitch made by my mother’s hand on the left sleeve pulled at my skin. It always reminded me that my black suit was the only one I had and that I had borrowed twenty-eight dollars from the bank to be here this evening.

Serena closed the folder.

“You took a risk when you wrote that Harbor House had been charged less for transportation, but the report showed the full amount.”

“I only compared the numbers.”

“Others do not touch numbers when an influential person’s name is written behind them.”

On the other side, Garik Thorn was typing quickly into his phone. His golden watch gleamed under the lights like a cold knife. He raised his head and smiled toward us, but the smile did not reach his eyes.

Five minutes earlier he had promised me twenty-five thousand dollars if I endured ten minutes beside Serena. Now nobody was laughing anymore.

“Mr. Rowe,” Serena said to me, “who did you show this report to?”

“My direct supervisor. Then the Strategic Operations Department.”

“Garik?”

I fell silent.

The silence was louder than an answer.

Near the stage, a waiter opened a champagne bottle. The sound of the cork rang through the hall like a gunshot, and I flinched involuntarily.

Serena noticed it.

“Are you afraid?”

“Of losing my job.”

“Only of that?”

The ice disappeared from her voice for the first time. That was exactly why I became even more afraid.

“There are children at Harbor House,” I said. “If the money is gone, they lack heating and food. This is more than a job to me.”

Serena looked at Nessa’s paper flower.

“That is why I seated you here.”

“You seated me?”

“No. Garik seated you. I simply decided not to let you leave anymore.”

At that moment Garik came to our table. The phone in his fingers was being crumpled as if the device were guilty.

“Ms. Vale,” he said, “I hope this little joke will not turn into a discussion of reports.”

“You started the joke,” Serena replied.

“Mr. Rowe misunderstood several pieces of data.”

“Then explain them to him right here.”

Garik looked at me.

“Caleb, you are very talented, but you still cannot distinguish between an internal work file and final financial data.”

“The final data contains transportation paid three times for Harbor House, which it never received.”

“Be careful.”

“Two reports disappeared from the shared drive. Both had my signature.”

Garik’s jaw tightened.

Serena asked calmly:

“Who deleted them?”

“Only the administrator had the system login record,” I answered.

Garik looked at his phone.

“This conversation is not official.”

“But your email is official,” I said. “You sent me the promise of twenty-five thousand dollars in writing.”

Someone nearby quietly exhaled. Garik looked toward the door for the first time.

Serena opened the folder again and took out a small memory card. The black plastic was almost invisible between her fingers.

“I received this this morning,” she said. “I have not opened it yet.”

“What is it?”

“Possibly part of the answer I have been looking for for three months.”

Garik took a step forward.

“This is already confidential company material.”

“That is exactly why you are so interested in it,” Serena replied.

The back door of the hall opened. A woman dressed in a black suit entered quickly and approached Serena. In her hand was a white folder with an official seal on it.

Serena looked at me.

“Caleb, before we open this, I want you to know that after this there will be no going back.”

The woman put the folder on the table. Garik froze. Serena reached toward the seal, and just then her fingers touched the edge of the folder…

Serena’s fingers touched the seal, and the woman immediately stopped her hand.

“Not yet,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because if what I think is in this folder is there, Garik will no longer be able to leave here freely.”

Garik gave a short laugh.

“This is absurd. My lawyer is already on the way.”

“Good,” Serena replied. “Then we will listen to him too.”

The woman who had brought the folder turned out to be Serena’s lawyer, Mira Hale. She pointed toward a small lounge away from the noise of the hall. Garik followed us, although security blocked his way at the door.

“I am the executive vice president,” he said.

“That is why we ask you not to make this difficult,” security answered calmly.

There was a wooden table in the small room. Candle wax had spilled across it, and the smell of burned orange floated in the air. I stood beside the door, as if escape from there were still possible.

Mira picked up the memory card.

“This card was found in one of the transportation companies,” she said. “The company that supposedly provided services for Harbor House.”

“Supposedly?” I repeated.

“The trucks existed in their records, but by registration they were in another state. The drivers were working other jobs on those days.”

Serena looked at Garik.

“Who approved these invoices?”

Garik shrugged.

“The company system automatically approves small expenses.”

“Millions of dollars too?”

Her voice was low, but it could be heard in the room more clearly than the music in the hall.

Garik pointed a finger at me.

“This boy has been collecting something against me for three years.”

“I have collected nothing against you,” I said. “I checked the children’s accounts.”

“Children?” Garik sneered. “That is always how they begin. With emotional words, and then they try to damage the company’s name.”

Serena’s gaze hardened.

“You said the word ‘children.’ Caleb brought only numbers.”

Mira inserted the memory card into the computer. Tables appeared on the screen, then several audio files.

The first recording was only a noisy office. In the second file, a man’s voice could be heard.

“Divide the money into four accounts. One to Harbor House, one to the Northern Shelter, and two to the company that will have a new name.”

I recognized the voice immediately.

It was Garik’s voice.

It was as if the oxygen disappeared from the room.

Garik leaned forward.

“This has been edited.”

“The recording was extracted from the company server yesterday,” Mira answered. “The original file is secured.”

“My lawyer—”

“Your lawyer has not arrived yet,” Serena interrupted. “And when he does, he will first explain why he met with your financial adviser yesterday.”

The color disappeared from Garik’s face.

I leaned against the chair. My palms were sweating, but a strange calm was entering me. For three months I had thought I was fighting myself. Now I understood that someone simply needed my silence.

Mira played the second recording.

“Delete Rowe’s report,” Garik’s voice said. “If he asks again, tell him it was a technical failure.”

I remembered the ticking of the old clock in my mother’s kitchen. Every night I returned home with that sound and wondered whether I was really understanding everything badly.

Serena looked at Garik.

“Do you still think Caleb misunderstood something?”

Garik took out his phone and angrily dialed a number.

“This room is being used illegally. I will ask security to confiscate all your devices.”

Serena glanced at Mira.

“Is there anything else?”

Mira did not answer. A third file appeared on the screen. My surname was in its name.

“Rowe — Final Plan.”

My throat went dry.

“What is this?” I asked.

For the first time Garik did not look at me.

Serena pressed to open the file. In the video frame, my work desk was visible. It was night. Someone stood in the room behind me and was looking through the folders.

His face was not visible yet.

Mira paused the video.

“This recording is not from the company camera,” she said. “One person sent it to us this evening.”

“Who?” I asked.

Mira turned toward me.

“The person who said he did not intend to kill you, only wanted you to disappear. And now he is here, in this building…”

At Mira’s last words, the room’s door slowly closed.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor. One, two, three. Garik turned toward the door, but security blocked his way again.

“Who is it?” I asked.

Instead of answering, Mira played the video.

My work room was visible in the frame. The wall clock showed two seventeen at night. A masked man stood at my desk, took my folders, and put them into a small black bag.

Then he came close to the camera.

He removed the mask.

It was Derek Mool, Garik’s personal assistant.

Garik inhaled heavily.

“I did not order him to do anything.”

The audio began on the screen.

“If Rowe sends one more report to the director, delete everything from his computer,” Garik’s voice could be heard. “Let him lose his job, then he will leave on his own.”

“And if he does not leave?” Derek asked.

“Then arrange something so that the police take him away.”

The video stopped.

Nobody moved in the room. The smell of candle wax became stronger, as if even the air were hiding something.

Garik moved his lips, but could not find a word.

Serena looked at Mira.

“Play the last file.”

A financial table appeared on the screen. The amount was marked in red: four million six hundred thousand dollars. Below it were listed seven shelters, including Harbor House. The companies receiving the transfers had different names, but all were managed from one address.

Mira read the address aloud.

“A building registered in Garik’s father’s name.”

Garik’s face became gray.

“This company is an old investment of my family. I do not manage it.”

“But the signatures on its accounts are yours,” Mira said.

Serena closed the folder.

“Garik, for three years you managed the fund that was created for children. You transferred part of the money to your own companies, then approved false invoices.”

“You have no evidence.”

“Now we do.”

“Caleb arranged all this.”

I laughed involuntarily, but the laughter came out painfully.

“Me? I can barely pay the rent for one room. If I could steal four million dollars, I would repair my mother’s roof first.”

Serena looked toward me. In her eyes I saw for the first time not only power, but exhaustion as well.

“Caleb, I read your reports myself. You are among the people who still preserve a human name for the company.”

Someone knocked on the door. Security let Derek, who had been standing in the corridor, in. His hands were tied behind him with a plastic fastener. His breathing was quick.

“I told them everything,” he said toward Garik. “You told me I would only delete the files.”

Garik rushed at him.

“Shut up!”

“No,” Derek shook his head. “Enough. You told me to tamper with Rowe’s car brakes so that he would become frightened.”

The strength left my knees. Last week the car really had failed to brake at an intersection. I had thought it was an accident.

Serena put her hand on the table.

“Mira, call the federal investigators.”

“They are already on the stairs,” Mira replied.

Garik suddenly took out his phone.

“I will make one call. This will all be resolved.”

His phone screen flashed. There was an incoming call. The number appeared unknown.

Garik answered.

“Who is speaking?”

He listened for several seconds. Confidence slowly collapsed from his face.

“No, that was not the agreement.”

Serena asked me quietly:

“Who is it?”

Garik ended the call and looked at me for the first time as if I were no longer an ordinary junior analyst.

“This is impossible,” he whispered.

Mira checked her own phone. Surprise appeared on her face.

“Serena, the investigators are not coming alone. They have an order signed by the chairman of the company’s board.”

“What order?” I asked.

Mira looked toward me.

“To freeze all of Garik’s accounts and dismiss him immediately.”

Heavy footsteps approached beyond the door. Garik understood then that this evening would not end merely with the loss of his money and position. But he did not yet know that the heaviest news for him was waiting not in this building, but at Harbor House the next morning…