CHAPTER 1: The Badge Marked As Dead
Dennis Greer kicked the yellow caution cone across the polished marble of the Northgate Concourse and grabbed the heavy canvas shoulder of my work jacket. Dirty rinse water from my overturned bucket pooled against my work boots, chilling the fabric where two hours of scrubbing grease from the floor grates had already left my knuckles raw. I could not pull away and walk out through the brass revolving doors, not while the state environmental warning in my jacket pocket proved three hundred gallons of fluorochemical runoff were draining directly into the city storm lines beneath this lobby.
"On your feet," Dennis snapped, twisting the fabric until the brass snap at my collar dug into my throat. He was forty-two, wearing a tailored charcoal suit that smelled of stale espresso and expensive wool, his site supervisor pin gleaming under the high halogen lights. "You contract temps think because the night gate is unlocked, you can sleep off a bender behind the planter boxes. Shift change was forty minutes ago. Get your filthy bucket off my floor before the executive committee steps off the six o'clock commuter shuttle."
"The drainage line behind the decorative hedge is corroded through, Dennis," I said, keeping my voice level as I stood up. The synthetic bristles of my heavy mop were still shedding gray suds onto the imported Italian limestone. "The intake trap has been bypassed with a rubber bypass hose. If you turn on the lobby fountains at sunrise, you will pump glycol vapor straight into the central air ducts."
He did not look toward the hedge. He did not look at the milky film creeping across the marble seams. Instead, his fingers hooked into the black lanyard hanging against my chest and yanked it upward. The metal clip snapped, stinging the skin below my collarbone as he ripped the plastic master keycard free.
"You don't lecture me on facility codes, sweetheart," he said, turning the card over in his palm. He walked two strides to the security pedestal where Marcus, an elderly guard with thirty years of service stripes on his sleeve, sat frozen behind the bullet-resistant glass. "Marcus. Bring up the terminal log right now."
Marcus adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses, his gaze darting between Dennis's flushed face and my dripping boots. "Mr. Greer, she was only clearing the standing water near the register—"
"I didn't ask for a report on the mop," Dennis cut in, leaning over the partition to press his thumb against the terminal microphone. He hit the dispatch button with enough force to rattle the acrylic housing. "Security central, this is Concourse Operations. I have an unauthorized intruder detained at the south turnstile. She's dressed in utility coveralls and carrying keycard seven-one-four."
A quiet prickle of ice settled behind my ribs.
Dennis had not swiped the magnetic strip. He had not tilted the card to read the scratched black print on the back, nor had he checked the serial barcode. He had recited the number seven-one-four instantly, as though he had typed it into the system a hundred times before sunrise.
"Mr. Greer," Marcus murmured, his fingers hovering over the keyboard. "Seven-one-four was assigned to Margaret Cole. Margaret passed away last autumn."
"Which makes it grand larceny," Dennis said, his voice dropping into that smooth, practiced cadence men use when they believe every exit is locked from the outside. He shoved the card into his own breast pocket, right behind his silk handkerchief. "Margaret’s locker was cleaned out six months ago. This woman stole dead inventory from the sub-basement cage. Log her as an unidentified vagrant, purge the morning entry scan so the system doesn't flag an active clearance, and escort her to the street curb."
"The card was not stolen from a locker," I said quietly, watching the pulse jump in his temple.
Dennis smiled, a tight, vicious baring of teeth. "Then tell it to the county marshal when he picks you up off the sidewalk. If you touch those glass doors again before nine o'clock, I will have you booked for felony burglary."
He seized my arm, marched me past the brass turnstiles, and shoved me through the outer airlock into the freezing dawn wind. The heavy magnetic latches clicked shut behind me. Through the glass, I watched Dennis lean over Marcus's shoulder, pointing a manicured finger at the screen as the delete key flashed red.
He thought I was an expendable temp who would scatter into the morning traffic rather than face a squad car. He had no idea the emergency receivership order in my pocket bore my legal name as the facility's incoming chief executive—or that Margaret Cole had been my older sister.
CHAPTER 2: The Magnetic Lock Clacked Shut While The Morning Scan Log Vanished