Chapter 2 - The Job I Wasn't Supposed to Have
Three days earlier, I had been serving coffee in a hotel restaurant when a man in a gray coat sat in my section and ordered nothing.
"Naomi Carter?" he asked.
I kept my face neutral. "Depends who's asking."
He slid a business card across the table.
MARTIN SHAW - DIRECTOR OF INTERNAL SECURITY, STERLING HOSPITALITY.
"Mrs. Eleanor Sterling would like to hire you."
"For what?"
He looked at my name tag, then at the tray in my hand. "Not waitressing."
Five years earlier, I had worked executive protection overseas. I left after a hostage extraction in Prague went wrong and my partner, Lena Ortiz, took a bullet meant for our client. Lena survived. My career did not.
That had been my choice.
I wanted a life where the loudest emergency was a spilled martini.
Martin apparently knew all of it.
"Mrs. Sterling's charitable foundation has lost six point four million dollars in eighteen months," he said. "The transfers are disguised as vendor payments. Three internal auditors flagged them. All three were fired."
"Call the FBI."
"We did. They need evidence from inside. Someone is deleting records faster than subpoenas can reach them."
"And you think Vanessa is involved?"
He didn't answer directly.
"Tomorrow night, the foundation holds its annual rooftop fundraiser. Vanessa controls the guest list, private office, and donor lounge. We need someone invisible. Someone she won't see as a threat."
I stared at him. "You want me in a waitress uniform."
"Yes."
"That's insulting."
"It's also exactly why it will work."
He was right, which irritated me.
I accepted for one reason: the missing money included donations meant for emergency housing for women and children.
I had spent enough years watching powerful people turn suffering into a business model.
At the fundraiser, my assignment was simple. Carry drinks. Watch Vanessa. Photograph any documents she moved into the private donor office. Do not confront anyone.
By 8:40 p.m., I had already photographed two suspicious invoices.
By 8:52, Vanessa caught me coming out of the donor corridor.
"What were you doing back there?" she demanded.
"Restocking wine."
Her eyes dropped to the empty tray in my hands.
"With no wine?"
I smiled politely. "I was on my way to get it."
She stepped closer.
"You're lying."
Then she looked at my face as if searching an old memory.
"Wait," she whispered. "I've seen you before."
Across the rooftop, Martin Shaw saw us talking.
He immediately turned around and walked into the elevator.
He left me there alone.
And five minutes later, Vanessa tried to kick me.
Now, with Eleanor Sterling standing ten feet away, I finally understood something much worse.
May you like
Martin hadn't run because my cover was blown.
He had run because Eleanor had arrived early.
