The Interview Room

Chapter 015: The Interview Room The Chesapeake receptionist was Megan's cousin, and that made the Monday interview more dangerous than any lobby guard could have been. A guard would check a name and forget a face. Sofia Delgado would remember Leah because family had sent her. If Leah sounded too polished, asked too much, looked too closely at the wrong door, Sofia might mention it to Megan over dinner. If she sounded too small, Chesapeake would never let her near the books. At 3:56 p.m., Leah stepped out of the elevator on the twenty-second floor with a fake resume, a cheap portfolio, and the knowledge that Arthur Webb's money might be behind the frosted glass in front of her. The brass plate read CHESAPEAKE MANAGEMENT CONSULTING. No logo. No public confidence. Just black letters and expensive quiet. Sofia looked up from a narrow reception desk. She was younger than Leah expected, with Megan's dark eyes and a smile that arrived before judgment could. "You must be Leah." "Sofia?" "Guilty." Sofia stood and offered her hand. "Megan says you're scary good with numbers and scary private about literally everything else." Leah let herself wince, as if embarrassed rather than cataloguing the office. Three workstations. One conference room. Two closed doors. A copier with a paper jam sign taped to it. No client trophies, no framed awards, no sign of an actual consulting practice beyond the furniture required to pretend one existed. "Megan exaggerates," Leah said. "About privacy, maybe. About numbers, I hope not. Diane is drowning." The name landed as the first useful fact of the day. "Diane?" "Diane Hollister. Office manager, payroll, accounts, printer repair, emotional support adult." Sofia lowered her voice. "She'll interview you. She's nice, but she's had six months without a bookkeeper, so if she starts looking at you like you're a life raft, don't take it personally." Six months without a bookkeeper. Leah stored that beside Chesapeake's dormant public profile and Webb's shell-company map. A real office did not ignore books for half a year unless someone wanted the mess useful. Before she could ask another harmless question, a woman in her forties opened the conference room door. Diane Hollister wore gray slacks, a cardigan, and the exhausted focus of someone who had kept a questionable machine running by hand. "Leah Chen?" Diane asked. "Yes." "Come in." The conference room had a glass wall with blinds half-drawn. Leah sat where Diane indicated, placing the portfolio on the table with exactly the right amount of nerves. Not shaking. Not icy. Competent enough to hire. Ordinary enough to dismiss. Diane scanned the resume. "Freelance bookkeeping for small businesses?" "Mostly restaurants, laundromats, and two importers in Queens." "QuickBooks?" "Desktop and Online." "Payroll?" "Basic. I don't handle tax filings without a CPA reviewing them." Diane's pen paused. "Good answer." Leah gave a modest smile. The lie had to carry weight, not shine. "I have references if you need them." "I may, later. Right now I need someone who can sort chaos without needing three weeks of training." Diane pushed her reading glasses up her nose. "We have multiple entities, several intercompany transfers, quarterly reconciliations, and a previous bookkeeper who left us with half-finished work. I have been doing what I can between everything else." "What kind of entities?" Diane's face changed by less than a heartbeat. The answer had a door in it, and Diane had been trained to close doors gently. "Consulting clients. Investment vehicles. Nothing exotic. The books are organized, mostly. They are just behind." Mostly. Leah let the word sit between them instead of chasing it. "What would you need first?" "Trial period. Two afternoons a week, four hours each. If you can get us current without making me feel stupid, we talk about more." "I do not make clients feel stupid." Diane looked up properly then, and for the first time Leah saw not suspicion but fatigue close to relief. "Can you start Wednesday? Two to six?" "Wednesday works." The door opened before Diane could answer. A young man with a deli bag leaned in, stopped when he saw Leah, and immediately tried to pretend he had not been listening. "Sorry," he said. "Didn't know you were interviewing." "Marcus," Diane said, with office-manager warning in her voice. "Right. Not here." He lifted both hands and backed out. "Good luck, Leah-whoever-you-are." The joke was lazy. The effect was not. Leah kept her expression amused, because Leah Chen had no reason to hear a threat in it. Inside, every muscle tightened. Whoever-you-are. A careless phrase could still find the bruise under a disguise. Diane sighed. "Marcus works on the consulting side. Ignore him." "What kind of consulting?" "Financial summaries. Market research. Whatever the principals send over." Diane said principals as if it meant people above her salary and below her conscience. "You'll mostly deal with me." Principals. Not clients. Not partners. Leah's first visible win was small enough to hide inside a note: Chesapeake had principals, a missing bookkeeper, and employees who did not know what the firm did. Diane stood and offered her hand. "Wednesday, two o'clock. Bring ID for the contractor paperwork." "Of course." Sofia walked Leah back to the elevator, whispering, "That went well. Diane only chews her pen when she thinks someone might save her." "Good to know." "Megan will ask me how you did. Am I allowed to say human?" Leah almost smiled. "Human is fine." The elevator arrived. Leah stepped inside and turned before the doors closed. Behind Sofia, Marcus had returned to his workstation. He was looking at Leah with harmless curiosity, but on the wall beyond him hung a delivery schedule marked PRINCIPAL REVIEW - FRIDAY. Friday. A review. Someone above Diane would read whatever the books became by then. The doors slid shut. Leah held the portfolio against her ribs and let the smile disappear. On Wednesday she would enter Chesapeake as a contractor. By Friday, her work might be on a principal's desk. If that principal was Arthur Webb, Leah Chen would not have weeks to learn the office. She would have two afternoons to touch the books, find the first pattern, and leave no trace of the dead girl behind the numbers.