Chapter 6 - The Audit Trail and the New Neighbor
Friday morning in Raleigh dawned crisp and clear. The cicadas had quieted down, replaced by the crisp, dry rustle of early autumn leaves blowing across suburban lawns.
I woke up at 5:30 AM, just like every other day.
The house felt different—not empty, exactly, but lighter. The heavy, suffocating tension that had quietly built up over the past three months like mineral scale in a water pipe was gone. I walked downstairs in my running clothes, brewed a pot of dark roast coffee, and sat at the kitchen island without looking out at the pool once.
At 7:00 AM, my phone buzzed with an email from corporate legal.
*Subject: Internal Review - Miller Incident / Asset Recovery.*
*Body: Thomas, thank you for submitting the comprehensive documentation yesterday. Our legal team has reviewed the access logs and confirmed that Mr. Miller’s unauthorized downloads compromised proprietary routing data for the Southeast hub. We are initiating a formal forensic audit. As the reporting analyst, your department will oversee the data restoration.*
In corporate terms, that meant I had just inherited oversight of Miller’s former portfolio—a promotion in all but title, accompanied by a significant bump in discretionary budget authority.
By 8:00 AM, I was tying my running shoes in the entryway when I heard a car door slam down the street.
I stepped out onto the front porch, holding my travel mug.
Three houses down, where the black BMW used to park on Thursday mornings, a moving van was idling in the driveway. A sleek, matte-gray Audi SUV sat behind it. A tall woman with dark hair tied back in a messy bun was directing two movers as they hauled a massive mahogany bookshelf out of the van.
She looked up, caught me staring, and gave a polite, tired wave.
I raised my coffee mug in acknowledgment and walked down the steps for my morning jog.
May you like
Life, much like water, always found a way to level itself out. You just had to make sure the drainage was clear.
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