Chapter 4

"Avery, please report to HR on the 19th floor immediately."

The email was sent at 8:00 AM, CC'ing Mr. Davis, the Head of Admin, and Legal.

Legal.

In my past life, Legal had never been involved in a routine HR meeting.

The door to the 19th-floor conference room was wide open. Five people were already seated inside.

Sarah, the HR Director, sat in the center. Marcus from Legal was on her left, and Mr. Davis was on her right.

At the far end sat a middle-aged man in gold-rimmed glasses, flipping through a thick stack of printed documents—an external auditor.

"Have a seat."

Sarah’s tone was cold and professional. In front of her were several printed sheets filled with tables and signatures.

"Avery, take a look at these. Do you recognize them?"

She slid the papers over.

They were five expense reimbursement forms.

The amounts were $16,000, $23,000, $18,000, $21,000, and $19,000. Totaling $97,000.

In the employee signature box, my name was written in bold ink.

On every single page.

The handwriting was an exact match. The tilt of the letters, the curve of the loops—even the little flourish at the end of my 'y' was identical to my natural handwriting.

But I had never signed these.

"I didn't sign these."

"These claims were submitted through your employee portal account," the auditor said, pushing his glasses up his nose as he opened another folder.

"System logs show that these five claims were submitted in January, March, May, July, and September of this year. Mr. Davis approved them all. They were filed as inter-department event expenses, totaling ninety-seven thousand, three hundred dollars."

"Upon verification, three of these events actually cost less than three hundred dollars. The other two... never even happened."

They never happened.

I stared at the signatures. In my past life, I had never even seen these documents because I hadn't survived long enough for the annual audit.

"Mr. Davis, did you review the details of these claims when you approved them?"

Mr. Davis's face turned ash gray. He gripped his travel mug so hard his knuckles turned white.

"Chloe told me Avery submitted them, and that she was just helping her run the paperwork. I didn't... I trusted—"

The door opened.

Chloe walked in.

Her eyes were red. She clutched a tissue in her hand, her nose slightly pink. She had either just cried, or was perfectly primed to start.

"I'm sorry I'm late."

She took the only empty seat, right next to me.

"Sarah, I have to take some responsibility for this too."

She kept her head low, her voice trembling.

"I was the one who helped Avery input these into the portal. She said she didn't really know how to navigate the expense system, so she gave me the physical forms and I submitted them for her... I didn't look at the amounts. We're team members. I trusted her..."

She looked up at me.

In those watery eyes, there was no guilt, no sympathy. It was the deep, sick satisfaction of a predator watching its prey step right into a steel trap.

"Avery, tell them. Didn't you ask me to submit them for you?"

"No."

"If you're going to deny it..." Her voice cracked. "Then whose signature is that?"

The auditor spoke up.

"We ran a preliminary handwriting comparison. The signatures on these forms match Avery’s employment contract and daily sign-in sheets with a ninety-one percent match rate."

Ninety-one percent.

Sarah looked at me, her voice dropping to a grim tone.

"Avery, you have two choices. Cooperate with the internal investigation and tell us where the money went, or the company will file a police report for corporate fraud."

Chloe’s shoulders shook with quiet sobs.

Tears dripped from her chin onto the polished table, one by one, with perfect, practiced rhythm.

"Sarah, Avery is a good person. Could there be some kind of mis—"

She couldn't finish her sentence. She covered her face, letting out a muffled sob.

The eyes of everyone in the room softened as they looked at Chloe. They looked at her with far more warmth than they ever did at me.

My ID badge was confiscated, my computer was locked, and I was suspended pending investigation, effective immediately. I was banned from the office floor.

As I walked out of the conference room, the hallway was dead silent.

Chloe ran out after me.

The tears on her face had miraculously vanished. There wasn't even a smudge in her foundation.

"Avery, wait up."

She slipped past me, blocking the elevator doors.

She pulled a fresh bottle of Coke from her designer bag, twisted the cap off, and took a sip.

"Do you know why I chose you?"

I didn't say a word.

"Because you're so damn useful. Last year, on your first day, Mr. Davis asked who was willing to spend their weekend organizing the archives. You were the only one in the whole department who raised your hand. I knew right then."

She took another sip, running her thumb along the rim of the bottle.

"Just plead guilty, Avery. It's only ninety-seven thousand. You can pay it back in installments. I'll even beg Sarah for you. You'll get a write-up, but we won't involve the cops."

"And if I don't?"

She tilted her head. Her peach-glossed lips curled into a smirk, her false eyelashes fluttering.

"If you don't? Avery, I've seen the agenda for the annual company-wide meeting next Friday. Your name is on the very last page. Do you know what's on the last page?"

She shook the soda bottle at me.

"The termination announcements, babes."