Then she pointed directly at me.
“She stole confidential corporate information!” Vanessa screamed, no longer caring who heard her. “She hacked my accounts! She framed me! This is illegal corporate espionage, Daniel, she’s a criminal! Have her arrested!”
I opened my handbag.
My hands were steady now.
I removed a folded, notarized copy of my conflict-of-interest disclosure and handed it to Mercer.
He accepted it with a respectful nod.
“No, Vanessa,” I said, my voice steady, resonant, and carrying clearly across the silent, captive crowd. “I didn’t hack anything. I was hired by your board of directors to find the missing money. And the exact moment my team discovered your name attached to the phantom invoices, I recused myself. I legally removed myself from the investigation. I made certain that strangers—people who don’t know you, who don’t hate you, who don’t care about you at all—checked every single piece of data. They are the ones who condemned you.”
