Secrets Unveiled
The folder was buried in the way guilty things always are at the very back of a locked cabinet in the secure file room, behind five years of dust, forgotten binders, and mislabeled tax records that hadn’t been touched since the last CFO quit in a scandal. The air smelled of metal, paper, and disuse. It was the kind of place where secrets went to die.
Ava only found it because the auditor had insisted politely, but firmly on seeing the original 2019 wire logs for a routine compliance check. And because she was the only one small enough to crawl under the bottom shelf when the drawer jammed halfway, refusing to budge no matter how many times the accountant kicked it.
Her hair snagged on a rusted bolt, dust coated her palms, and her blouse snagged on a splinter. She mutte
