“What’s wrong with her?” Jeremy notices that Nicole has gone completely white. Even Marta turns to look at her.
“Lee, I think she needs to sit down. Honey, do you need to sit?”
“Nicole?”
She just shakes her head, and tears are streaming down her face suddenly.
“Nicole, what is it?”
“It’s him. It’s Micah.”
“Okay, who’s Micah?” Marta looks confused.
“Her ex-boyfriend,” I explain. “She didn’t know the guy was married.”
“Ah,” murmurs of understanding come from my team and I’m glad they’re such a non-judgmental bunch. I’m a little surprised when Marta comes over and gives Nicole an awkward hug. Marta isn’t exactly the hugging type. She ignores my questioning look and focuses on Nicole.
“You don’t have to tell us what you went through,” she says slowly. “But you have a unique chance to help us.”
“I do?”
“We’ve been trying to break the hierarchy of this place for ages. Until now, we didn’t have a name. We didn’t have faces. All of the information I just dug up? It’s because you knew this woman’s name.”
> “I’m surprised you don’t have like, facial recognition software,” Nicole whispers.
“We do,” Jeremy says. “But today was the first day this woman has shown her face. There aren’t pictures on any of the official company websites. The picture we found is just one that happened to have her full name linked to it. That was all luck. Besides, that software can take days or even weeks to get a hit. You gave us one in seconds.”
“Thanks to you,” Marta says, “Now we have something we can work with. And also thanks to you, we may be able to move up our intended date of breach.”
“Date of breach?”
“Wilson came to use earlier. He’s got some ideas.”
“I thought Wilson was with Reece. When the hell did he have time to come here?”
“Wilson is a busy man, but he’s not dumb. He knows that we’ve waited patiently for a long time. He wants to go in for the kill.”
“So, what, we’re going to just destroy the corporate headquarters?”
“And risk villainizing ourselves and other shifters? No,” Jeremy shakes his head. “Wilson wants us to dig up as much dirt as we can on these guys and start leaking it. Shifters already know they’re bad news. The humans will be on our side if they can see where we’re coming from.”
“That’s where you come in,” Marta tells Nicole. “You know these people better than anyone. You can help us figure out what public mistakes – and what private mistakes – they’ve made that speak about them as a company.”
“Like what? Like the affair?”
“No,” Marta and I say at the same time. “The affair is no one’s business but yours,” Marta says. “No, we need to bring to light the illegal actions this company has done. The whole stealing-dragons thing isn’t going to fly once we’re able to drum up some proof, but we’re going to need your help.”
“I don’t know what I can do,” Nicole says, and she looks both scared and helpless. “I couldn’t even tell the guy I was dating was married. I didn’t even know his wife worked directly with me. I mean she’s the one who hired me.”
“Nicole? What is it?”
“She hired me, Lee,” Nicole looks at me. “It was her. She’s the one who brought me on board, and she’s the one who sent me into the woods. She and Bernie...they were close, Lee.”
“Am I missing something?” Jeremy asks, cocking his head.
“They sent me into the woods on purpose,” Nicole says. “They didn’t plan on bringing me back at all. They planned to let me get hurt or, if things went wrong, they planned for me to take the fall. I was the fall guy.”
“Ouch,” Jeremy lets out a long whistle.