The Woman Who Looked Like Diana
Chapter 06 - The Woman Who Looked Like Diana
Nobody touched the old folder.
Even Dominic remained still.
That was what frightened Diana most. He had reacted to every accusation like a man tracking bullets in flight. But her father's name, written in faded ink above the word SETTLED, had struck some part of him that did not know how to move.
Marcus noticed.
Of course he noticed.
"Open it," he said to Diana.
His voice was soft again. Invitation dressed as mercy.
Dominic spoke without looking away from the folder.
"Diana, don't."
"Why?"
"Because he wants you to do it here. In front of them."
"Maybe he wants me to know the truth."
Dominic's eyes lifted to hers.
"Marcus has never wanted a truth in his life unless it could be sharpened first."
Marcus laughed.
"That's rich coming from you."
The silver-haired board member stood.
"Enough. This meeting is suspended. Mr. Caruso, Mr. Santoro, neither of you will remove documents from this room until counsel arrives. Miss Vale, you may remain or leave as you choose."
It was the first clean sentence Diana had heard all day.
She chose to leave.
Not because she was finished. Because if she stayed one more minute, she would open the folder with shaking hands in front of men who had already treated her life like evidence.
Dominic followed her into the corridor.
"Diana."
She turned so quickly he stopped.
"Do not ask me to trust you right now."
"I won't."
"Good."
"But I will ask you not to trust him."
"That is not the same thing?"
"No."
He looked older suddenly. Not weaker. Dominic did not do weak. But the day had scraped something from him.
"My father had enemies," he said. "Many. He also had habits that I spent years trying to correct after he died. If your father's file is real, I need to see it before Marcus does anything else with it."
"Of course. The file matters most."
"No," he said. "You do."
The words stopped her, which made her hate them a little.
"You don't get to discover that after I resign."
"I know."
The elevator opened.
Inside stood a woman wearing Diana's blouse.
For one impossible second, Diana looked at herself from a distance.
Same dark hair pinned in a loose bun. Same white satin sheen. Same black skirt. Same height, or close enough. The face was different, thinner and harder around the mouth, but the resemblance under office lighting would have fooled a camera easily.
The woman froze.
Then she ran.
Dominic moved first.
"Marco!"
The corridor erupted—not into chaos, exactly, because Dominic's people were too trained for that—but into controlled violence of purpose. Doors opened. Footsteps hit carpet. The woman reached the stairwell before Marco blocked it from below.
She stopped between floors, breathing hard, one hand on the railing.
Diana stood at the top of the stairs with Dominic behind her.
The woman's eyes moved from Diana to Dominic.
"I didn't know," she said.
Dominic's voice was quiet.
"Who hired you?"
She swallowed.
"I was told it was a corporate surveillance job. That's all."
"By whom?"
"A woman."
Diana frowned.
"A woman?"
The impersonator nodded quickly.
"Blonde. Expensive coat. She gave me your sizes, your schedule, how you walk. She said I had to go in after you resigned and take one folder from the bottom drawer."
Dominic looked at Diana.
Diana understood before he spoke.
Marcus had not acted alone.
"Name," Dominic said.
"I don't know."
Marco appeared behind the woman on the lower landing.
She began to cry, but quietly, ashamed of the sound.
"Please. I needed money. My son has asthma. She said nobody would get hurt."
Diana closed her eyes.
There it was again. Desperation, the currency rich people spent without touching.
"What folder?" Diana asked.
The woman looked at her with pleading confusion.
"The one marked Bell Tower."
Dominic's expression hardened.
"Bell Tower doesn't exist."
"It does," Diana said.
He turned.
"What?"
"Not as a company project. As a mistake."
She felt herself re-entering the old office in memory: black folders, coded labels, Dominic's impatient voice asking for one file while she noticed another out of alphabetical order.
"Four months ago, a folder labeled Bell Tower appeared in the archive request bin. I thought it was misfiled. It had no client number. No sender. I brought it to your desk."
Dominic shook his head.
"I never saw it."
"Yes, you did. You told me to put it in the temporary safe until you had time."
"Diana, I would remember."
"You were on a call with the mayor's office and bleeding through a bandage on your left hand. You were not at your most attentive."
Marco, despite the moment, looked impressed.
Dominic's jaw tightened.
"Where is it now?"
"It should still be in the temporary safe."
"It isn't," said a voice above them.
Marcus stood at the stairwell door, hands relaxed at his sides.
No one had heard him approach.
"I checked," he continued. "Sadly, Miss Vale seems to have misplaced it."
The impersonator's face went white.
Diana looked at Marcus.
"Who is the blonde woman?"
Marcus smiled faintly.
"You will have to be more specific. New York is full of blondes with ambitions."
Dominic stepped down one stair.
"Walk away, Marcus."
"From my own board meeting?"
"From her."
Marcus's eyes slid to Diana.
"You keep saying that as if she belongs to you. Hasn't she taught you anything?"
Diana hated that he was right in the shape of the sentence and wrong in the soul of it.
The impersonator suddenly reached into her blouse and pulled out a tiny drive.
"This is what they gave me," she said. "In case something went wrong."
Marcus's smile vanished.
She threw it upward.
Diana caught it against her chest by instinct.
For one second, everyone stared.
Then Marcus said, almost gently, "You should not have done that."
The lights in the stairwell went out.
May you like
Emergency red washed over the walls.
And somewhere below, a door opened that should have been locked.
