Evelyn leaned forward.
"Can we find out who owns it?"
"We can investigate public records and pursue the relevant documents through proper legal channels."
"And if Adrian owns it?"
"Then we establish that with evidence before we draw conclusions."
Evelyn nodded.
The article had made her a public suspect.
But it had also created an unexpected consequence.
People were now examining the same documents that Adrian had hoped would remain buried beneath the scandal.
The story was no longer entirely his to control.
The photograph arrived in an email with no message.
Evelyn opened it at 6:42 a.m.
It showed a woman standing beside a construction site, holding a rolled set of architectural plans. She wore a hard hat and a pale coat, and her dark hair was tied behind her neck.
The photograph was old enough that the colors had faded.
Behind the woman stood a younger version of Martin Shaw.
At the bottom of the image, someone had written a date.
April 2014.
Evelyn recognized the location.
It was the Northbridge waterfront site, long before the current development plans had been approved.
She also recognized the woman.
Her name was Laura Bennett.
Laura had been a project architect who worked with Hartwell during the company's earliest years. She had left after a dispute over a major development contract.
At the time, Evelyn had been a junior executive. She remembered Laura as intelligent, demanding, and unwilling to accept explanations that did not match the documents.
She also remembered the circumstances of her departure.
Laura had accused the company of misrepresenting the costs associated with a waterfront development. The board had rejected her concerns and suggested that she was struggling to adapt to the company's commercial priorities.
She resigned shortly afterward.
A few months later, rumors circulated that she had been dismissed for mishandling project information.
Evelyn had never learned what happened.
She had been busy with another project and had accepted the explanation given by her supervisors.
Now she stared at the photograph.
The sender's address was unfamiliar. It belonged to a generic email account created recently.
She forwarded the message to Rachel.
The attorney called within minutes.
"Don't open any attachments beyond the image you have already viewed," Rachel said. "Don't click any links, and don't reply. We'll preserve the email in its original form and have it examined if necessary."
"Do you think it's a threat?"
"I don't know. It could be an attempt to provide information, provoke you, or mislead you. We need to understand where it came from."
Evelyn looked again at the photograph.
Laura's expression was serious. She was looking directly at the camera, as though the person taking the picture had interrupted an argument.
"She questioned the Northbridge costs," Evelyn said.
"Do you know that from personal knowledge?"
"I remember the dispute. I don't know exactly what she found."
"Then we record what you remember and distinguish it from what you can establish."
Rachel asked Evelyn to write down everything she recalled about Laura's departure.
Evelyn spent the next hour reconstructing the events.
Laura had been responsible for reviewing several construction estimates. She had objected to a series of consulting expenses that appeared in the project budget.
Martin Shaw had told the board that the expenses were legitimate.
The finance department had said the documentation was incomplete because several contracts were still being negotiated.
Laura had refused to approve the final cost schedule.
Shortly afterward, she resigned.
Evelyn remembered hearing Adrian describe Laura as difficult.
"Some people would rather be right than be useful," he had said.
At the time, Evelyn had laughed.
Now the memory felt cruel.
She searched her personal email for Laura's name.
Most of the messages were ordinary project correspondence. One, dated shortly before Laura resigned, stood out.
Laura had written to a group of executives, including Martin, Adrian, and Evelyn.
The subject line read:
Unresolved Vendor Documentation — Northbridge
The message was short.
I cannot certify that the current cost schedule accurately reflects the underlying contracts. Several vendor descriptions do not match the work identified in the supporting materials. I have requested clarification twice. Until the discrepancies are resolved, I recommend that the schedule remain provisional.
Evelyn read the message three times.
She had received it.
She had seen it.
And she had done nothing.
Not because she had wanted to silence Laura, but because she had been inexperienced, busy, and inclined to trust the senior executives who told her the issue was being handled.