The Woman in Claire's Uniform
Chapter 03 - The Woman in Claire's Uniform
Claire did not want to take the phone.
That was an ordinary sentence, and the feeling behind it was anything but ordinary. The black receiver sat in the technician's hand like something pulled from deep water. Around her, every man in the security room had become very still.
Vincent reached for it.
The technician shook his head. “He said only her.”
“He?” Claire asked.
The technician swallowed. “The voice was altered.”
Vincent looked at Claire. “You don't have to.”
It was the first thing he had said to her all night that sounded like permission instead of command.
That, more than the phone call, frightened her.
Claire took the receiver.
“Hello?”
A mechanical voice filled her ear.
“The girl in the elevator should have stayed poor and quiet.”
Claire's fingers tightened until the plastic creaked.
Vincent watched her face.
The voice continued. “Go home. Forget the badge. Forget the woman. Forget the ring.”
“Who is this?” Claire said.
A soft laugh came through the line, thin as a blade.
“You slapped his hand away once. Don't mistake that for power.”
The call ended.
Claire lowered the receiver slowly.
For a moment, she was back inside the elevator, red emergency light on Vincent's face, his hand too close to her cheek. She hated that memory and hated more that the person on the phone knew about it.
Vincent turned to the technician.
“Trace it.”
“Already trying.”
“Try faster.”
Luke moved to the door. “Boss.”
Vincent followed his gaze to another monitor. The service entrance camera had switched to live view. A woman in a pink cleaning uniform stood outside Hayes Tower under the awning.
Claire's uniform.
Claire's height.
The same brown hair pinned into the same loose bun.
For one second, the woman looked straight into the camera.
Then she smiled.
Claire's stomach turned.
“That's not me.”
“I know,” Vincent said.
The woman lifted one hand. Between her fingers was a tiny black object.
A flash drive.
Then she dropped it into the trash can beside the entrance and walked away into the snow.
Luke was already moving.
“Alive,” Vincent said.
Luke stopped just long enough to nod.
They did not catch her.
By the time Luke reached the street, the woman had vanished into a crowd leaving a theater two doors down. No one had seen anything. No one ever did, when not seeing paid better.
The flash drive contained one file.
A video.
The technician opened it on a secure machine while Claire stood with her arms folded tightly across her chest. The image was grainy, angled from inside the elevator ceiling.
Claire saw herself trapped with Vincent.
Saw him step close.
Saw her push his hand away.
But the audio had been cut and rearranged.
On the edited video, Vincent's voice said, “You understand why displeasing me is dangerous.”
Then Claire's voice, lifted from later, said, “I'm just trying to get home.”
Then the picture jumped.
It made him look like a predator and her like a victim about to be silenced.
Claire felt sick.
Vincent said nothing for a long time.
Finally, he turned away from the screen.
“They weren't trying to kill me in the elevator.”
Claire looked at him. “Then what were they doing?”
“Building a story.”
The technician clicked through the file's metadata. “It was scheduled to send to four newsrooms at six tomorrow morning.”
Luke's jaw tightened. “A harassment scandal.”
“Not a scandal,” Vincent said. “A distraction.”
Claire understood before anyone explained. A rich, feared man caught in an elevator with a poor cleaning girl. Enough truth to make the lie believable. Enough shame to make every legitimate partner step back. Enough noise to hide something else.
“What else happens tomorrow?” she asked.
Vincent looked at her, and she wished he hadn't.
“A vote.”
“What kind of vote?”
“The board decides whether to remove me from control of Hayes Development.”
Claire almost laughed. “You have a board?”
“Even criminals need accountants.”
Again, that dry almost-humor. Again, gone before it could become human.
The technician found one more folder on the flash drive. It was locked, but the file name was visible.
BENNETT LEVERAGE.
Claire stepped forward before she meant to.
“Open it.”
“We need time.”
Vincent looked at Luke. “Put two men on her apartment.”
“No.” Claire turned on him. “My grandmother is there. She can't have armed men scaring her half to death.”
“She is already in danger.”
“Because of you.”
The room went silent.
Luke glanced at Vincent as if waiting for an explosion.
Vincent only looked at Claire. “Yes.”
The honesty took the air out of her anger.
“Yes,” he repeated quietly. “Because of me. And because someone thinks you are useful against me.”
Claire reached for her phone and called home.
It rang once.
Twice.
A third time.
Her grandmother never let it ring three times.
Claire called again. Nothing.
She was already moving toward the door when Vincent caught up beside her.
“I'll drive.”
“I don't want your help.”
“You need it.”
“I needed my job.”
He stopped then, and for a moment she saw the hit land.
But there was no time to be fair. No time to be kind.
They reached her apartment twenty minutes later.
The door was unlocked.
The recliner was empty.
On the kitchen table lay her grandmother's pill organizer, open and scattered.
Beside it was a note written in shaky blue ink.
Claire knew that handwriting.
May you like
Her grandmother's.
It said: I should have told you about the Hayes family years ago.
