The Vote Part 2

Chapter 066: The Vote Part 2 By six forty-five, Leah was carrying Burgundy to table twelve while three men in suits argued over whether the Attorney General's office would move before Martha Thorne could bury the Foundation records. One of them said the inquiry would take months. Another said a formal five-year request meant the Charities Bureau had already seen enough to be afraid of being late. Leah kept her wrist steady as she poured, because the vote had passed, the paper trail had narrowed, and every careless word in L'Etoile now felt like a match struck too close to gasoline. "My firm reviewed a Thorne Foundation grant once," the youngest man said. "Nothing looked illegal." "Nothing ever looks illegal at first," his companion answered. "That is what Pemberton is paid for." Leah set the bottle down, repeated the specials, and moved away before her face could change. Pemberton's name sounded different when strangers used it. Less like a man with silver hair and a leather briefcase, more like an office, a function, a shield. Across the dining room, table fourteen stayed empty. Ethan had not come. She had told herself she did not expect him. Hunt Capital had a board vote to interpret, a Meridian transfer to verify, and a client whose charitable foundation had just rewritten its own oversight rules under public fire. Ethan's absence was logical. It still pulled at her attention like a hook under the skin. At table ten, two women in dark dresses had the Times article open between them. "Two abstentions is not support," one said. "It is a warning." The other tapped the screen. "And a no from Krause. If Martha had the room locked, she would not have let that happen." Leah collected their bread plates and walked them to the service station with her pulse tight and hot. That was the first visible reward of the day, small but real. Martha had won the vote, but the room had not bowed. Two abstentions, one no, and five years of records in the Attorney General's hands. The public story had changed how people said her name. Priya caught her at the pass. "Table six needs the duck explanation. And stop staring at fourteen." "I'm not." "You are," Priya said without looking up from the ticket rail. "If the man comes in, he comes in. If he does not, we still have a dining room." Leah took the plates because Leah Chen did not flinch when a manager noticed her weakness. She delivered the duck, corrected a wine order, refolded a napkin, and let the rhythm of service rebuild the mask. Invisible, competent, unremarkable. She could survive one night as a server while Manhattan turned Martha's machinery into dinner conversation. At eight thirty, Megan appeared beside the service station with her coat still on and her eyes fixed too sharply on Leah's face. "Break?" Megan asked. Leah looked toward Priya. Priya gave a curt nod. "Five." The alley behind L'Etoile was cold enough to bite through Leah's sleeves. Megan folded her arms, not from the weather. "Sofia called me twice today." Leah kept her voice casual. "About the Foundation story?" "About NexGen. Phase III numbers. She said the Foundation article is the door everyone can see, but the clinical data is the door that matters." Megan's mouth tightened. "I do not know what that means. I do know she sounded scared." Leah felt the reserve weapon shift in its hiding place: Sofia's twelve pages, the NX-4012 variance, the shell grant line feeding Sebastian's acquisition. It was not public. It was not safe. If Sofia was talking through fear, the clinical trail could expose Chesapeake, Megan's cousin, and Leah's route into the files before they were ready. "Sofia should be careful," Leah said. Megan laughed once, without humor. "There it is again." "What?" "You turn every answer into a warning. Ethan Hunt. The Foundation. Sofia. You do not talk to me, Leah. You manage me." The alley door sighed behind them as a dishwasher came out with a trash bag, then vanished back inside. Leah waited until they were alone again. "I am trying to keep you out of something dangerous." "You put me in it when you asked for Sofia." That landed cleanly because it was true. Leah had used the friendship. She had told herself she was protecting Megan by giving her only fragments, but fragments had edges too. "I know," Leah said. Megan's anger flickered, surprised by the admission. "Sunday," she said. "You promised this week. I am done guessing. Sunday, you tell me what this is, why Sofia is suddenly afraid of pharmaceutical data, and why Ethan Hunt looks at you like you are a locked door." Leah's throat tightened. "Sunday." "No more partial answers." "I will tell you what I can tell you." "No." Megan stepped closer. "That is the old deal. The new deal is honest. If you cannot do honest, say that now." The kitchen noise pressed through the brick wall: pans, voices, the blunt music of work that did not care about conspiracies. Leah thought of Nora teaching her to survive by dividing truth into pieces small enough to carry. She thought of Ethan's empty table and Kevin's unnamed source and Pemberton walking into 445 Park with the calm of a man who had already started a list. "Sunday," Leah said again, and this time it sounded less like a delay than a surrender. Megan studied her face for another long second. Then she nodded and went back inside first. Leah stayed in the alley until the cold made her hands ache. Ethan had not come. Sofia was talking. Megan's deadline had become a wall she could no longer step around. The vote had not ended the danger; it had pushed every hidden alliance toward daylight. At eleven twenty, back in her apartment, Leah opened the Moleskine and wrote three lines under the vote count. L'Etoile: public confidence in Martha damaged. Sofia speaking through Megan. Sunday truth deadline fixed. Then she added the line that changed the shape of the next day: Pemberton will look for the leak now. The thought was still on the page when her regular Chesapeake reminder lit up her phone. Thursday session. 2:00 p.m. Q4 reconciliation. Leah stared at it until the screen dimmed. Tomorrow she would walk into Pemberton's office as if she had not helped make his whole defense necessary, and if he had started building a profile of everyone who touched the records, Leah Chen would be on it.