I got off at the next stop, crossed the platform, and caught a train heading back downtown.
By the time I reached the alley behind the Michigan Avenue boutique, the sky was completely dark. The rain had turned into a thick mist. I approached the heavy steel security door, my heart hammering in my throat. I punched my six-digit code into the keypad.
A green light flashed. The lock clicked heavy and loud.
I was in.
I slipped into the narrow, dimly lit back hallway. The air back here smelled like cardboard boxes and printer ink, a sharp contrast to the perfumed showroom. I crept toward the locker room, the sound of my wet shoes squeaking slightly on the linoleum.
As I passed the Store Director's office, I froze.
The door was slightly ajar. A harsh, bright light spilled out into the hallway, slicing across the floor. The mechanical, grinding sound of the heavy-duty paper shredder filled the air.
I pressed my back against the wall, holding my breath, and edged closer to the gap in the door.
Elise was standing over the shredder, her immaculate blonde hair messy, her eyes wide with panic. She was frantically feeding stacks of thick, cream-colored paper into the machine.
"I don't care what you have to do," Elise hissed into her cell phone, which was pinned between her ear and shoulder. "Wipe the Tuesday discount logs. Erase it all. If Corporate sees that I’ve been giving forty percent off to the Sterling list, I’ll go to prison, David. Just do it!"
My breath caught. It wasn't just unauthorized discounts. She was embezzling. She was artificially marking down luxury items, selling them to her inner circle, and likely pocketing cash kickbacks while writing the losses off as damaged inventory.
"I don't care about the old woman!" Elise suddenly shouted into the phone, her voice cracking. "She was just a crazy beggar! The police are already doing extra patrols on the street. No, I am not worried about her. I am worried about the audit team arriving at 9 AM!"
I couldn't risk listening anymore. I silently pushed away from the wall and hurried down the hall to the locker room. I opened my locker, grabbed the small plastic box containing Maya's inhaler, and shoved it into my bag.
As I turned to leave, I saw something resting on the small bench in the center of the locker room.
It was a sealed envelope. It hadn't been there earlier.
I walked over. My name, Harper, was written across the front in elegant, sweeping fountain-pen ink.
I picked it up. The paper was incredibly thick, textured with a faint watermark. I recognized it instantly. It was the Calloway & Co. executive stationery. But this specific paper, with the gold-foil crest in the corner, had been discontinued in the late nineties. The company had switched to minimalist black-and-white branding decades ago.
I broke the seal. Inside was a single card.
Harper,
You showed courage today when it was easier to look away. Elise is destroying the house I built. She does not know about the basement archive code.
Meet me in the Archive Room at midnight. Use code 8240.
— M.C.
M.C.
Margaret Calloway.
The founder. The woman in the brown coat was the founder of the company.
I stared at the paper, my mind spinning. Margaret Calloway had stepped down as CEO fifteen years ago and completely vanished from public life. There were no recent photos of her online. She was a ghost. A legend. And Elise had just treated her like absolute garbage.
But why was Margaret asking me to meet her here? Why didn't she just fire Elise on the spot this afternoon?