She ended the call and stood in the stairwell for a moment longer, listening to the building hum. Then she went back to work, because the trash didn't empty itself, and because in twenty-four hours she would stand up in a town hall as herself, and she wanted to spend her last day as a temp doing the job right.
The afternoon passed in a blur of restrooms and trash routes and the particular tiredness that comes from carrying a secret. At four, Rosa found her in the second-floor supply closet, restocking paper towels, and stood in the doorway watching her for a moment.
"Tomorrow's the town hall," Rosa said.
"I know."
"You going?"
Yvette stacked the last roll and turned around. "Wouldn't miss it."
Rosa nodded slowly. "Then do me a favor. Whatever happens in there β" she stopped, and her voice did something rough, "β my daughter's textbooks came from that ERG fund. Malik's a good kid. The people on my crew β they're good people. Just β remember us. When you're whoever you really are."
Yvette crossed the small closet and took Rosa's hands β rough, strong hands, eighteen years of hands β and held them. "Rosa," she said, "I could never forget you. You're the reason I'm here."
It wasn't the whole truth. But it was true enough to stand on. And as Yvette walked up the ramp that evening into air that had finally cleared, she thought about Friday, and the stage, and the microphone, and the question she was going to ask from the back of the room β and for the first time all week, she wasn't afraid of what would happen when she stood up.
She was afraid of what would happen if she didn't.
Friday morning arrived bright and cold, the sky washed clean by four days of rain, and the Crestview headquarters looked like a photograph of itself.
Yvette arrived at the service entrance at six, as she had all week, but today the building felt different β charged, expectant, the way theaters feel before the curtain. In the atrium, a crew was setting up rows of folding chairs facing a low stage, and the silver roadster had been moved to the side, its platform rotated so it caught the morning light through the glass. Someone had hung a banner across the second-floor bridge: WELCOME TO THE FUTURE β ONE TEAM, ONE CRESTVIEW. Yvette read it twice and thought about how many futures were about to collide in this room.
Rosa found her by the supply closet, and her face was tight.
"You okay?" Yvette asked.
"They moved the town hall up to ten," Rosa said. "And Foster's people have been in the HR suite since seven with the doors closed. Something's happening." She lowered her voice. "Harlan told me they printed new badges. Temporary ones. For 'special guests.'" She looked at Yvette meaningfully. "Somebody important's coming."
Somebody important was already here, Yvette thought, pushing a cart. But she just nodded. "We'll see."
At eight, Denise texted: Priya's package is ready. Suspension docs, investigation scope, everything. Say the word.
Yvette texted back: Not yet. After the Q&A.
She worked the morning route on autopilot β restrooms, trash, the lobby already filling with early arrivals who had dressed a little sharper than usual. At nine, Tom Becker appeared beside her cart as she was changing a trash bag outside the security office.
"All set?" he said quietly.
"All set."
"Vaughn's been in his office since seven-thirty with Foster and the Summit Advisory people." Tom's voice was low. "Three suits I never saw before. They've got binders. Whatever they're planning to announce, it's already decided."
"Good," Yvette said. "Decided things are easier to answer."
Tom almost smiled. "You know, in eleven years, I've never seen anybody walk into one of Vaughn's meetings and walk out taller. Just β" he hesitated, "β be careful. He's got security on standby. Extra guards at the doors. He does that whenever he's expecting trouble."
"Expecting trouble from whom?"
"From whoever asks the wrong question." Tom looked at her steadily. "Don't ask the wrong question, Ms. Langston. Ask the right one, and make it count."
At nine-forty, the atrium was full. Yvette counted roughly six hundred chairs, all taken, with more people standing along the edges and on the glass bridges above. The air hummed with the particular energy of a company holding its breath. She took her place at the very back, behind the last row, her cart parked in the service corridor, her grey polo shirt making her invisible among the facilities staff along the walls. Rosa stood two people down from her, hands clasped, face unreadable.
On the stage: a podium, a large screen showing the Crestview wave logo dissolving into the Langston Holdings mark, and four chairs. Peter Vaughn took the center seat, flanked by Diane Foster and Nathan Cole, the CFO, with one empty chair that Yvette knew β with a cold, certain knowledge β was meant for her. The owner. The special guest. The woman whose badge they had printed and whose name they would announce, and who was standing at the back of the room in a temp's polo shirt with a blister on her thumb.