Chapter 2 #2
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. She opened a new folder in her personal workspace—Working – NB anomalies—then immediately hated the title for being too on-the-nose.
She renamed it NB_Notes and created a blank document inside, the digital equivalent of a cleared throat.
She typed one line: Benford deviation – initial flag and then stared at it, the cursor blinking like an impatient metronome.
This was just diligence, a curiosity to satisfy before the acquisition closed.
She’d show the cleanest version of this to Richard Hale.
She would get his take and let him decide if it needed to go anywhere.
Richard had hired her when she was an unknown with a résumé that didn’t glitter properly.
He’d vouched for her when a partner wanted someone with a fancier pedigree.
He trusted her to be cautious and thorough. He paid her to be right.
He also trusted her not to make trouble without proof.
Norah minimized the document and opened a browser tab instead, fingers moving before she could second-guess.
She searched public filings for NorthBridge Energy—SEC submissions, quarterly calls, and dry press releases.
She skimmed an earnings transcript where the CFO used too many adverbs and thanked the audit team by name.
She pulled down a vendor list and scanned for outliers.
She made a note to check which audit firm had the real estate holdings subsidiary—if it was a small regional outfit, the odds of missing this went up.
Her phone lit up face-down, casting a pale rectangle across the blotter.
A quick glance showed a group text from college friends with a photo of someone’s new baby pressed between smiling parents.
Norah clicked the screen dark with a knuckle.
She was happy for them. She also hadn’t held a conversation with any of them that lasted more than five minutes in months, unless you counted heart emojis.
She rubbed the heel of her palm under her collarbone, surprised at the tender ache there. It wasn’t panic. It wasn’t even fear. It was the feeling of a hinge shifting in her life—quietly, but decisively—as if a door she hadn’t noticed in her own house had swung open.
The city outside blinked like it had all the answers. Norah whispered the anchor she always came back to, the one thing that steadied her more than prayer ever had. “Numbers don’t lie.”
Prayer hadn’t done much for her when her world splintered. Math had never left her.
She turned back to the spreadsheet and made herself do the ordinary things.
Save the file, archive a copy to the project folder, email herself a sanitized note about “variance checks complete” because the paper trail mattered and future-Norah would want to know what past-Norah had done—and when.
Then she opened a new workbook and started recreating the test by hand, cell by cell, as if the labor of it might expose a flaw she’d missed. She didn’t find one.
She checked the time again. 10:31 p.m.
It was too late for curry. She could still go home, feed the cat, stand barefoot in her kitchen and feel the cool tile under her feet and try not to think about how quiet the apartment would be.
She could pretend not to hear her mother’s voice in her head, lined with accusation and old disappointment.
She could ignore the way Mrs. Kelley’s smiling voice had made something inside her ache, and the way she’d fled the conversation before the ache turned into a conversation she could not have.
If the numbers were telling the truth, then someone wasn’t.
Her cursor hovered over the project team chat. One message to the group and she could push this into official daylight. “Flagged an anomaly. Would like a second set of eyes in the morning.” That would be responsible. Sensible.
She slid the folded printout deeper into the notebook’s back pocket until the edge no longer showed. She gathered the NorthBridge files into a straighter stack. She eyed the crocheted mouse, and the absurdity of its presence here made her want to laugh, or cry, or both.
Cleo would be waiting.
Norah shut off the monitor. The office fell into dimness, night pressing its cool palm to the glass. For a breath she stood motionless, letting the quiet wrap her like a coat, letting her spine lengthen and her shoulders drop. The printer light blinked in the corner like an eye.
She picked up her notebook, heavy now with that single, dangerous sheet, and slid it into her tote.
She hesitated, then reached for the NorthBridge folder and pulled out one more report—a summary of all the real estate holdings.
She copied it, tucked the copy into her tote beside the notebook, and returned the original to the stack.
At the doorway, she flicked off the lamp. The office behind her settled into shadow and glass. In the hallway, the lemon polish scent had faded, leaving only the faint, dry smell of paper and after hours carpet.
Tomorrow she’d come in early and pick up where she left off. She’d rerun the tests with alternate data sources. She’d ask Compliance for an updated vendor file and see who approved what, when. She’d think about whether to bring it to Richard Hale. She’d decide if she should bring it to him at all.
The elevator chimed at the end of the corridor.
Norah started toward it, then paused and looked back at the glass box of her office.
Her reflection hovered in the dark like a twin—straight hair, fitted blazer, the crisp silhouette of a woman who had made herself small and sharp to fit into rooms that weren’t built for her.
She lifted a hand and flattened her palm against the cool metal of the tote’s zipper, feeling the ridge of folded paper under the canvas.
Numbers don’t lie.