Chapter 4

I flicked open the company group chat I'd left on mute all afternoon.

The whole thing had already blown up.

Screen after screen of blood-soaked photos, sickening to look at.

In the pictures, Narelle lay on the marble floor beside the time clock, both hands clamped over her belly.

The soaked soft-leather flats had been flung to one side, and a glaring dark-red pool wound out from beneath her.

Messages refreshed by the dozen every second.

"Oh my God! Narelle lost the baby!"

"Call 911! Why isn't the ambulance here yet?!"

"How did she fall so hard? What's that layer on the floor?"

Right after that, Edgar dropped a sixty-second voice message into the group.

I tapped it, and Edgar's roar filled the entire living room in an instant.

"Nora! You vicious woman!"

"Fine, you didn't want to lend her the shoes. But what gives you the right to splash dish soap in front of the time clock?"

"The cleaning lady said she was never over there scrubbing anything! That foam on the floor was all you!"

"You were just jealous that Narelle was getting made permanent, so you set her up to slip and lose the baby!"

"I'm telling you, this is murder. You'd better get ready for prison!"

I stared coldly at the messages on the screen.

Absurd. Beyond absurd.

I'd left the office at two thirty. The security cameras and my keycard both had it on record.

And he could still pin the dish soap on me.

Before I could even close the app, a glaring topic popped up in the local trending list.

"Vicious Veteran Employee Poisons Pregnant Woman at Time Clock Out of Jealousy, Causing Miscarriage"

Behind it sat a dark-red "HOT."

I clicked in. The very first post was a pale selfie of Narelle lying on the ambulance stretcher.

An IV line ran into her arm, tear tracks at the corners of her eyes, the caption dripping with drama:

"Baby, I'm sorry. Mommy couldn't protect you."

"If this senior colleague had a problem with me, she could have come at me. Why go after an innocent life?"

In under ten minutes, that post was shared tens of thousands of times.

The comments were wall to wall with people cursing me, and someone had even dug up my ID badge photo and my name.

"A killer like this deserves to be cut a thousand times!"

"Find out what company she works at and get her blacklisted across the whole industry!"

My phone buzzed hard. It was the recruiter from the new company.

The second the call connected, the voice on the other end was clipped and rushed:

"Ms. Henson, given that you're currently caught up in an extremely damaging public scandal—"

"Mr. Finch has instructed us to suspend your offer for now, until the police issue a clear conclusion to their investigation."

"I'm sorry. We can't take on that kind of reputational risk."

The call cut off from their end.

At the same moment, a huge slam.

Someone had kicked my security door hard from the outside, hard enough to shake dust loose from the walls.

Curses came through the door.

"Nora! You murdering little bitch! Get out here!"

"You killed my son. I want a life for a life!"

"Break it down! We're beating her to death today, no question!"

The handle of the security door twisted wildly, metal shrieking as it warped.

I sat on the sofa, watching the iron door shudder.

And dialed 911.

After I hung up, I moved quickly to the computer.

Opened the company's internal collaboration app and set up an online video meeting with mandatory attendance for everyone.

I dragged Edgar, the company's HR director, the legal counsel, and Narelle's account all into the room.

The instant the meeting connected, Edgar's face, twisted with rage, filled the screen.

"Nora! You've got the nerve to open a video call? Get yourself down to the hospital right now and kneel and apologize!"

I ignored his roaring and turned the camera to face myself.

Then I slowly raised my right hand.

In front of the lens, I held up a small black USB drive.

"When Narelle fell, the hallway camera really was broken."

"So you all figured that with no one watching, you could just make up whatever story you liked."

I looked at Edgar on the screen, a cold smile tugging at the corner of my mouth.

"Want to see what's on the drive?"