Episode 5

Chapter 5: Coffee and Conversations

Claire Ashworth brought two sandwiches to work every day.

"It's not on purpose," she said, setting a wax-paper-wrapped turkey club on Ethan's desk at noon on Tuesday. "I just — I make one for myself and then I think, what if I'm hungrier later? So I make another one. And then I'm never hungrier later. So now you get the second sandwich."

"Every day?"

"Every day. It's a curse."

They started eating lunch together. Not in the cafeteria — Claire had discovered a bench on the roof terrace that nobody used because the elevator access was unmarked. They'd sit with their backs against a concrete planter and talk about things that didn't matter and things that did.

Claire was careful about her background. Her family was "in real estate." She didn't say which family or how much real estate. She wore a plain Timex on her wrist but carried a handbag she kept under her desk — vintage, with a patina that suggested old money. Ethan noticed. He didn't mention it.

"What about you?" she asked one afternoon. "Where'd you grow up?"

"Foster care. Group home upstate until I was eighteen. Scholarship to Columbia. That's the highlight reel."

She didn't flinch. Didn't offer pity. She just nodded, like he'd told her he was from New Jersey.

"You ever go back?" she asked. "To the group home?"

"No."

"Do you want to?"

He thought about it. He hadn't expected to think about it. "I don't know. There was someone there — a girl. Laurel. We were close. She got transferred when I was fourteen. I never found her."

Claire was quiet for a moment. "That's a long time to wonder about someone."

"Yeah," Ethan said. "It is."

Claire pulled her knees up, wrapped her arms around them. She didn't push. That was the thing about her — she had an instinct for the exact edge of a conversation. Most people blew right past it. Claire stopped there.

Ethan almost told her more. About the night the social worker had come for Laurel — 2 AM, a Thursday, the fluorescent hallway lights buzzing while a fourteen-year-old girl carried a garbage bag of everything she owned toward a van she'd never seen before. About how he'd stood in the doorway and said nothing because what was there to say. About how that silence had calcified into something he carried in his chest like a stone — small, smooth, permanent.

He didn't tell her. But he thought about telling her, and that was more than he'd done with anyone in years.

She changed the subject to the V1 phone case prototypes she was working on — recycled ocean plastic, minimal design, textures inspired by beach erosion. Her eyes lit up when she talked about her work. This was a woman who cared about the thing itself, not the credit for it. Ethan filed that observation alongside the Timex and the hidden handbag. People who cared about the work more than the credit — those were the ones worth knowing. Those were the ones who wouldn't sell you out when the floor got slippery. He'd learned that distinction early, in a group home where the kids who bragged about their drawings got them stolen and the kids who drew quietly kept their pencils.

---

The summons came on Thursday.

Serena was standing when Ethan entered. She didn't sit down.

"Close the door."

He closed it.

She had a printed copy of the V1 market analysis on her desk — the one Derek had presented. She tapped it with one finger.

"This is excellent work."

"Thank you."

"I didn't say you wrote it."

Silence.

"But here's what's interesting." She opened a folder next to the deck. Inside was a printout of the email Ethan had sent her the previous week — a routine note about the intern onboarding schedule. Three paragraphs, plainly written, nothing special. Except.

"The sentence structure in this email matches the writing in the deck. Short declarative sentences. Data before conclusion. Footnotes in APA format — which Derek has never used in three years." She looked at him. "The deck's author metadata was changed at 2:47 AM on Sunday. Derek doesn't work Sundays. I checked his badge swipes."

Ethan said nothing.

"Did you write this analysis?"

He met her eyes. She was testing him — not for the answer, which she already knew, but for how he'd handle the question.

"Does it matter who wrote it," he said, "if the analysis is correct?"

Serena stared at him. The room was very quiet. The city hummed thirty-two floors below.

"It matters to me," she said.

The words hung there. Not a reprimand. Not a compliment. Something closer to a declaration — *I pay attention, and I don't tolerate fraud on my team.*

Ethan didn't confirm or deny. He held her gaze for another second, then said, "Is there anything else you need?"

She studied him the way you study a lock you can't pick. "No. You can go."

He walked out. Behind him, Serena sat down at her desk. She opened a browser. Typed "background check — Cross Industries employee" into the search bar. Cursor blinking in the name field.

She typed: E-T-H-A-N C-R-O-S-S.

She stared at the screen for ten seconds. Then she highlighted the name, deleted it, and closed the browser.

She didn't know why she'd stopped. But something about him had made her hesitate.

She turned off the monitor and opened the V1 timeline instead.

Claire had left first — "meeting with the materials vendor, wish me luck" — and Ethan had stayed an extra five minutes on the roof terrace.

He thought about Serena's question. *Did you write this analysis?*

He thought about his answer. *Does it matter who wrote it, if the analysis is correct?*

It was the right answer for the room. But sitting here, alone, with the wind pulling at his collar, he wasn't sure it was the true one. It mattered. Of course it mattered. He just couldn't afford to let anyone see that it did.

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***