He was staring at the folder.
Martin was staring at the tax records.
Neither man noticed Maggie standing outside the conference room.
She had stopped because she heard Daniel's voice.
“This could become a serious problem.”
Maggie walked away.
She did not smile.
She did not feel victorious.
She felt something else.
Something she had not felt in years.
Concern.
Because Daniel's voice had not sounded annoyed.
It had sounded frightened.
And Maggie knew the difference.
She returned to the basement.
This time, she did not search for equipment warranties.
She searched for everything related to the North Plant.
She started with the purchase.
Then the construction records.
Then the insurance.
Then the closure.
Then the equipment sale.
Then the property transfer.
She created a timeline.
The North Plant had been acquired in 1998.
Construction had begun shortly afterward.
The facility had opened two years later.
It had operated for nearly two decades.
Then, suddenly, the company announced that it would close.
The official closure date was September 14.
Maggie found the final inventory.
She read it.
Then she found shipping records.
She frowned.
The facility had supposedly been closed.
But shipments had continued.
September.
October.
November.
December.
January.
The following February.
Maggie checked the destination.
One company appeared again and again.
Morrow Industrial.
She wrote the name down.
Then she searched for Morrow.
The company had been created only months after the North Plant closure.
Its registered purpose was equipment resale.
That seemed reasonable.
Until Maggie found the ownership records.
Morrow Industrial was owned by a holding company.
The holding company was connected to an investment firm.
And one of the firm's directors was Martin Hale.
Maggie stopped.
She stared at the page.
Martin Hale.
Bellweather's CFO.
She searched for more.
She found invoices.
Purchase orders.
Shipping manifests.
Insurance forms.
The pattern became clearer.
Equipment was being transferred from Bellweather to Morrow.
Morrow sold some of the equipment.
Other pieces remained in private warehouses.
Money moved between accounts.
Then some of that money returned to companies connected to Bellweather executives.
Maggie did not know exactly what was happening.
But she knew it wasn't normal.
She began making copies.
Not everything.
Only what mattered.
She also memorized the locations of the original documents.
That was important.
If someone discovered what she was doing, they might remove the originals.
Maggie had a remarkable memory.
Her father had encouraged it when she was young.
He had been a mechanic.
He used to test her by giving her lists of numbers.
“Remember this,” he would say.
Then he would recite a series of digits.
She would repeat them.
“Again.”
She would repeat them.
Eventually, he stopped giving her numbers.
He gave her mechanical part numbers.
Then license plates.
Then dates.
Her father used to laugh.
“You remember everything.”
Maggie would shrug.
“I just pay attention.”
He had smiled.
“That's a rare skill.”
Now she understood why.
By Friday, Maggie had discovered another discrepancy.
The North Plant inventory listed 112 industrial motors.
The official sales records listed 112.
But the shipping manifests listed 146.
She counted them again.
Thirty-four motors were missing from the official sales documentation.
She found their serial numbers.
Then she found where they had been shipped.
Morrow Industrial.