Avery looked at her.
“Whose account?”
Priya stared.
“That shouldn't exist.”
“Why?”
“JKS is vendor administrator.”
“Pinnacle?”
“Yes.”
Avery felt cold.
“You gave a vendor authority to change complaint classifications?”
“No.”
Priya shook her head.
“They were given audit permissions.”
“Read-only?”
“Supposed to be.”
Avery leaned back.
“Supposed to be is having a difficult morning.”
Priya looked horrified.
“I need forensic security.”
“Not yet.”
“Avery—”
“If this account is unauthorized, whoever uses it may still believe we haven't noticed.”
Elaine understood immediately.
“Preserve evidence silently.”
Priya nodded.
“Mirror everything.”
“Do not disable access.”
Camille asked:
“And Thursday?”
Avery looked at the anonymous warning.
“We let them present the numbers.”
Tuesday’s board packet arrived at 6:00 p.m.
Page seventy-three contained exactly what the letter predicted.
CUSTOMER EQUITY & ACCESSIBILITY PERFORMANCE
Substantiated discrimination complaints:
Down 41 percent year over year.
Employee bias incidents:
Down 34 percent.
Accessibility escalations:
Down 29 percent.
Training completion:
98.7 percent.
Overall compliance trend:
Strong improvement.
A green arrow pointed upward.
Avery stared at it.
Her father used to say the most dangerous color in business was green.
Red made people nervous.
Green made them stop asking questions.
She called no one.
The following morning, Priya entered Avery’s office carrying a laptop and looking as though she had not slept.
“It’s worse.”
Avery closed the door.
“How?”
“JKS-ADMIN isn't just changing classifications.”
“What else?”
“Complaint routing.”
Avery stood.
Priya opened the audit trail.
Certain complaints were diverted before independent review.
Others were marked duplicate even when unrelated.
Some attachments had been removed.
Photos.
Medical documents.
Witness statements.
“Deleted?”
Avery asked.
“No. Hidden from normal reviewer view.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
“Can we identify who logged into JKS?”
“VPN masking.”
“Location?”
“Mostly through Pinnacle infrastructure.”
“Mostly?”
Priya looked uncomfortable.
“Three sessions originated from Meridian headquarters.”
Avery stared.
“Whose floor?”
“Executive network.”
Silence.
“Which office?”
“We can't isolate yet.”
Avery’s voice became quiet.
“Do it.”
Priya nodded.
“And Avery?”
“Yes?”
“One of the complaints they buried involved Flight 417.”
Avery froze.
“What?”
“Not your incident.”
“Another passenger.”
Priya opened the file.
It had been submitted five months after Avery’s assault.
A Black woman named Tamara Lewis, thirty-four, had been removed from first class after a white passenger claimed she was sitting in the wrong seat.
The gate system later confirmed Tamara’s assignment was correct.
But unlike Avery, Tamara was not the company founder.