Yes. We’ll preserve everything.”
She hung up and said nothing further.
Ryan turned to Claire. “What was that?”
“The compliance acknowledgment being escalated,” she said.
He opened his mouth. Nothing came out. For possibly the first time in his adult life, Ryan Calloway had no casual word to drop, no comfortable authority to reach for.
He left without saying anything else.
The following week moved in careful, documented increments. Silverline froze Ryan’s access pending review. An external forensic team began a formal examination of the accounts. Claire was interviewed twice, both times with her attorney present, both times in the same steady register she had used in audit fieldwork for years. She spoke only to what she could prove. Dates. File paths. Authorization names. Amounts. She did not speculate about motive or intent. The records were prepared to handle that themselves.
Ryan’s father called once. Claire did not answer. His
