Nina called me back from my car. She was hiding in the third-floor stairwell, her voice shaking so hard the phone rattled against her teeth.
“Clara, it’s a total bloodbath up here. Martin didn’t just look at your file—he finally opened the master share ledger from 1998. Legal is pale. General Counsel has locked himself in his office, and HR director Sarah Vance is throwing up in the executive restroom.”
I adjusted my sunglasses, resting my hands on the steering wheel of my sedan. I didn’t turn the engine on. There was nowhere I needed to be yet.
“What did he miss, Nina?” I asked softly.
“Everything,” she choked out. “He thought you were just ‘Clara Vance,’ the Senior Operations Controller who’s been here forever. He didn’t connect Vance to Tennant because your personnel file listed your mother’s maiden name for security reasons after the kidnapping threat back in the nineties—the one your grandfather handled before the press got wind of it. Martin saw ‘Clara Vance’ and thought you were just an aging clerk whose married name had swallowed her identity. He didn’t check the primary beneficiary line on the trust certificates.”
