The Woman I Met One Night Came to My Interview, but After My Answer the Smile Disappeared from Her Face

Patricia leaned back, and for the first time I saw that the tiredness was not only under her eyes — it was written in her shoulders, in the way she gripped her fingers, and even in the empty glass left on the table.

“Do you agree?” she asked me.

“Are you asking me as a manager or as the woman who stood barefoot in my kitchen on Saturday?”

Her fingers stopped.

Only the low hum of the ventilation system could be heard in the room. Stripes of the evening sun flickered on the metal blind hanging by the window.

“I am interested in both answers,” she said.

“As a manager, I will tell you that the plan works. As a woman, I will tell you that I do not want to run away from you only because we are at work.”

Patricia looked away.

“This is all happening very quickly.”

“The change at work?”

“Everything.”

That word strangely warmed the room. But I immediately became careful. As long as she remained my boss, our relationship was no longer simply a free choice. Her every smile, call, and invitation would be read differently.

“If you want, we can stop here,” I told her.

She raised her head.

“I did not say that I want to stop.”

“Then what are you saying?”

Patricia did not have time to answer. The sound of quick footsteps came from the corridor, and the door opened so that the handle struck the wall. Michael Miller entered the room, holding a folded sheet of paper.

His face was paler than usual.

“Patricia, the supplier sent us an additional message.”

“What happened now?”

Michael first looked at her, then at me.

“This is no longer only a delivery problem.”

He placed the sheet on the table. The corner of the paper was wet, as if someone’s hands had become wet with sweat.

I leaned forward.

“Specifically?”

“The data from their warehouse does not match our accounts. During the last six months, the quantity they sent was smaller than what was written in the documents.”

Patricia immediately rose to her feet.

“Who signed for the receipt?”

“All the receipts have the same internal code,” Michael answered. “A code that was used from only two people’s systems.”

He fell silent.

“Whose?” I asked.

Michael pressed his lips together.

“Mine and the old administrator of Patricia’s father.”

Patricia’s face changed.

The founder of Becker Wellness had died three years earlier. At work, people always spoke about him with respect, but Patricia avoided this subject as though her father’s name were not merely a memory but an unhealed wound.

“My father’s administrator left five years ago,” she said.

“That is exactly why this is strange,” Michael lowered his voice. “His account is still active.”

The clock on the wall struck seven.

At that moment I realized that this was no longer only about a bad supplier. Someone had left an invisible door inside the company for years.

Patricia picked up the sheet.

“Who have you spoken to about this?”

“No one yet.”

“Good. Do not call anyone.”

Michael nodded, but stopped by the door as he was leaving.

“There is one more thing.”

Patricia turned around.

“What?”

“An anonymous letter was left in your office this morning.”

He took a small, dark paper packet from his pocket. It had neither a name nor an address on it. Only one sentence: “If you trust Eric, look at your family’s accounts first.”

Patricia seized the packet.

And suddenly I remembered again the silver watch I had left in her apartment and which I had thought was our only secret.

Her fingers opened the edge of the packet. She put her fingers inside and was about to take something out…

Her fingers opened the edge of the packet. She put her fingers inside and was about to take something out, but Michael locked the door from the inside.

“Not yet,” he said.

Patricia looked at him sternly.

“What does ‘not yet’ mean?”

“If this letter is bait, the person who sent it already knows that we received it.”

I watched the packet lying on the table. The paper smelled sweet and slightly burnt, as if it had been stored in the old archive of a warehouse.

“Could there be cameras filming this room?” I asked.

Michael shook his head.

“All the corridors on the executive floor are filmed, but not this room.”

“Then why did you lock the door?”

“Because half an hour ago my computer restarted by itself and all the current accounts disappeared.”

Patricia slowly lowered her hand.

“You did not tell us this until now.”

“Because I was not sure whether it was an attack or a technical fault.”

“And now?”

“Now I see that someone is trying very hard to make sure we cannot be certain either.”

Silence fell.

I knew this kind of silence. It is the moment when people are still trying to find a soft name for an event, because the truth is much heavier.

“Open the packet,” I told Patricia.

She looked at me.

“What if all of this is arranged against you?”

“Then all the more reason we must know what they are hiding from us.”

Michael took out his phone and turned on the screen.

“I am recording this.”

“No,” Patricia said. “Not yet. If something leaks from here, we will not know which door is open.”

Her old confidence had returned to her voice, although the thumb of her right hand still nervously touched the corner of the packet.

She took a thin memory card from inside. The small black object looked almost comically insignificant in her palm.

“We cannot put this into the company computer,” I said.

“We will take it to my house,” she replied.

“No. I have an old, separate device in my car. It does not connect to the internet.”

Michael knitted his brows.

“Are you always prepared for everything?”

“No. Only for the day when someone says that something like this was impossible.”

Patricia smiled involuntarily, but the smile immediately disappeared.

We went down through the rear exit of the warehouse. It was nine o’clock. The motion sensors in the corridor turned on and off one after another, as if an invisible person were walking ahead.

When we reached my car, Michael raised his hand.

“Stop.”

A black van stood in the opposite parking lot. Its engine was off, but someone’s silhouette could be seen inside.

Patricia immediately took out her phone.

“I will call security.”

“Wait,” I told her. “If they are watching us, panic is the best answer for them.”

“And if there is an armed person sitting in the car?”

“Then walking calmly will no longer help us.”

Michael muttered quietly:

“This is already beyond control.”

“That is exactly why we must know who was controlling the accounts,” I answered.

I took the device from the trunk of my car. The plastic casing had old scratches, and the lower corner of the screen was broken. Patricia inserted the memory card.

The first file turned out to be an audio recording.

Noise. A door closing. Then a man’s voice.

“As long as the girl is in charge, everything is in danger.”

The second voice was lower.

“The girl is not alone. She trusts the new man.”

Patricia froze.

I looked at her, but said nothing.

In the recording the first voice sounded again:

“Then we will use her trust. If necessary, we will blame Eric Cooper too.”

Michael almost snatched the device from my hand.

“That is not my voice.”

“Nor mine,” Patricia said.

The recording continued. There was the rustling of papers, and then one sentence that changed the air around us.

“Her father left everything not for his daughter, but for the person who would find the second owner hidden in the accounts.”

Patricia turned toward me.

“What second owner?”

I had no answer.

At that moment the door of the black van opened. The person sitting inside got out and lifted a phone to his ear.

Michael said in a whisper:

“He knows that we listened to the recording.”

The man who came out of the van did not look toward us. He simply murmured into the phone:

“They are already together.”

Then the call ended.

For the first time I saw fear on Patricia’s face.

“Get into the car,” I told them.

“Where are we going?”

“Where this recording cannot be deleted.”

But before I closed the door, a message came to my phone from an unknown number: “If you want to understand why your new boss chose you specifically, find the second key to her father’s safe…”

“If you want to understand why your new boss chose you specifically, find the second key to her father’s safe…”

Below the message was one address. In Boulder, on the same street where the bar was in which I met Patricia.

She read the screen and closed her eyes.

“My father’s old house is nearby,” she said.

“You do not go there anymore?”

“I have not entered it even once since his death.”

“Then we will enter it today.”

Michael grabbed my hand.

“This could be a trap.”

“Of course it is,” I answered. “But whoever is setting the trap for us thinks that we know nothing.”

Forty minutes later we stood in front of the old house. The night was cold. The wind chime hanging on the wooden porch swayed with every slight breeze and made the same sharp sound.

Patricia opened the door.

Inside there was the smell of dust, wood, and closed rooms. A large portrait of her father hung in the living room. In his hand could be seen a bronze-colored ring of keys.

“I never liked this picture,” she said.

“Why?”

“They always painted my father as if he had every answer.”

Michael checked the walls, while I entered the study. The drawers of the desk were empty, but under the carpet on the floor I noticed a small metal opening.

Patricia knelt and lifted the carpet.

There was a small safe there.

“I do not have the key,” she said.

I took the memory card from my pocket.

“We must find the second key, not break open the safe.”

Patricia looked at the portrait. Then she approached the bronze bell hanging on the wall. Under the bell she found a small wooden latch. When she pressed it, a key fell out from inside.

Patricia watched it for several seconds.

“My father took this out only when he was hiding something from me.”

The key entered the lock.

The safe opened.

Inside were a sealed folder, two bank statements, and a small voice recorder. On the cover of the folder was written: “For Patricia, if Michael is no longer beside her.”

Michael stepped back.

“What is this supposed to mean?”

Patricia opened the sealed folder. On the very first page I recognized her father’s handwriting.

“If you are reading this letter, the old obligations in the company are still active. Michael knows that the hidden share in the main supplier’s contract belongs to a foreign company. This share was not supposed to be transferred to Patricia after my death. Therefore, they created the system so that she would appear to be the author of the financial mistakes.”

Patricia’s breath caught.

“My father accused Michael?”

Michael shook his head.

“This is impossible. I served him for twenty-five years.”

My name was written on the second page.

I read aloud:

“Eric Cooper should not be hired only because you trust him. His past accounts show that he is the only candidate who can discover this type of hidden diversion. If he chooses this work himself, give him access to everything.”

Patricia looked at me.

“Is that why you chose me?”

“I chose your résumé. Your father only warned me what the risk would be.”

“But you knew about my candidacy.”

“I knew that you were suitable. I did not know that we would find this letter.”

Michael suddenly struck the table.

“This is forged.”

At that moment the voice recorder turned on. A man’s voice filled the room. Patricia recognized it immediately.

“That is my father,” she said in a whisper.

In the recording Becker’s voice was calm, but heavy:

“Michael, if you are listening to this, know that I have understood everything. You and Walter Hayes have been dividing the company’s money for years. I created false accounts to protect Patricia, but if I died, the truth was to be given only to an independent auditor. Eric Cooper will not appear in this matter by accident. He does not need my family name. He needs only the facts.”

The recording ended.

Michael’s face became gray.

“It is edited,” he said.

Patricia picked up her phone.

“I am calling the police.”

“Not yet,” I stopped her. “We must make three certified copies of these files.”

The phone rang.

An unknown number appeared on the screen.

Patricia answered.

“Mrs. Becker,” said an unknown voice, “if you opened the safe, then you already know that your father was not the only person who hid all this.”

Patricia fell silent.

“What do you mean?”

“Tomorrow morning your company’s accounts will be frozen. And before you learn this, the entire board will have a document in which every violation will be presented as bearing your signature.”

The call ended.

Patricia slowly lowered the phone.

Michael shouted:

“This is not my fault!”

I looked at him.

“Then tomorrow, in front of everyone, you will have a chance to prove it.”

But Patricia noticed another sheet in the folder. At its bottom was written only one name — Walter Hayes — and one date that was before tomorrow.

There it also said: “If Michael has already been exposed, the next person is closer than you think…”