Chapter 10 - THE REAL REASON HE FIRED ME
The major twist became official on Wednesday.
Police and corporate investigators completed the timeline, and every earlier clue snapped into place.
The preprinted termination form.
The shipment Derek falsely claimed I had delayed.
The month-old “badge glitch” only he had fixed.
His unusual questions about my finances.
The draft internal theft referral with my name on it.
Derek had not fired me because I was twenty-seven minutes late.
He fired me because he needed me gone before the inventory fraud landed on him.
He had been using my badge credentials after “reprogramming” them, attaching overnight thefts to my employee record while building a personal profile that would make me seem desperate enough to steal: single father, recurring lateness, overdue bills, child-care disruptions, financial stress.
Once he terminated me, he planned to present corporate security with a neat story:
troubled employee, suspicious access activity, documented unreliability, motive.
And because he had already conditioned the warehouse to see me as “that late guy with problems,” the story would have stuck.
I sat through the formal review in stunned silence while Owen Price laid the sequence out point by point. Mel Grant added the supporting documents. Catherine finished with the conclusion.
“You were not collateral damage,” she said. “You were selected.”
That was the hardest part to hear.
Not a random victim.
A deliberate one.
Derek had studied my life and chosen me because I had the least room to absorb the hit.
If Catherine had not gotten a flat tire.
If I had not helped her.
If she had arrived in Portland on time instead of walking into that warehouse after me.
I would have been fired, blamed, and possibly arrested within days.
I thought of Lily sitting over her cereal that morning in the blue-gray light of the kitchen, trusting me the way children trust the world through one adult.
For the first time since all this started, anger replaced fear.
Not loud anger.
Cold anger.
Because Derek hadn’t simply threatened my job.
May you like
He had aimed at my daughter’s entire life.
And he had nearly done it with paperwork.
