Chapter 25: Draft Behind a Locked Door
My heroine had perfect judgement because I had not yet given her anything worth losing.
On Sunday, I locked the rented workroom above the closed bookshop and opened episode two alone.
Rain ticked against the skylight.
The editor's note sat beside Carys's photograph of the cut binding. Version three remained preserved underneath.
SHE WILL REPORT IT. WHY WOULD SHE TAKE IT?
My first answer ran for four careful paragraphs.
Carys understood evidence policy.
She trusted the audit trail.
She knew removal would weaken any later inquiry.
Every sentence proved she was sensible and safe. The answer became embarrassingly easy: she would obey.
I deleted the answer.
The locked door behind me made a small, unnecessary click as the heating settled.
I had mistaken caution for depth. Careful people still chose badly when safer routes were closed.
At Rowan Hall, refusing Oliver publicly had cost me the shelter of being the reasonable wife nobody needed to see.
Putting that thought into Carys would turn Saltmere back into my marriage. She needed her own cost.
I left it in my private notes.
Then I asked what the harbour could remove from her, not from me.
Carys was forty-five.
Her service record left her one year short of a harbour-funded long-service pension supplement, payable only to staff employed on the qualifying date.
Her accrued workplace pension remained hers. The stake was the extra harbour tier, not her existing pot.
The archive notice classified removing an original incident ledger as gross misconduct. Carys read it before acting.
Dismissal before the qualifying date stopped the tier. An appeal might reverse that, but Carys could not count on winning.
I placed those facts where she could see them.
The archive door carried the code notice.
Her long-service supplement forecast lay folded in her handbag because payroll had corrected her service date that morning.
Neither fact required a speech. The two documents could confront each other on the desk while footsteps approached.
Carys heard her supervisor outside, ordering the audit alert closed as duplicate weather interference.
Through the glass panel, she watched him pocket the only key to the records cabinet.
Reporting had already reached the person she needed to report. Procedure had preserved her complaint and delivered it into hostile hands at once.
The cut leaf proved somebody had altered the book.
The remaining ledger proved where the cut had been made.
Carys slid the heavy volume towards her.
I made her stop. The pause mattered because taking the book had to be a decision, not panic disguised as momentum.
She read the misconduct notice once.
She unfolded the supplement forecast and looked at the date on which one more year's service would qualify her.
Then she chose Mae Bell's remaining record over the enhanced tier. The choice did not become wise merely because I needed her to make it.
Carys put the original ledger inside her canvas work bag.
She signed out nothing.
When she opened the archive door, the supervisor was already walking towards her.
The weight knocked against her knee as she passed him. It was too large to feel like a clever secret.
His gaze dropped to the bag.
Carys carried the ledger through the harbour-office exit.
Her supervisor took her door card, announced summary dismissal for alleged gross misconduct, and handed her the appeal form.
I ended the scene before explanation could rescue her.
For the first time, her decision damaged something she had spent years earning. She had wagered the supplement, although an appeal might restore it.
It was not perfect judgement.
It was a choice a reader might oppose and still have to follow.
I saved the file as SALTMERE_EP2_V4 without touching the earlier versions.
At 18:22, I uploaded it through my project account.
The editor returned CHARACTER MOTIVATION — PASSED.
Below it, the platform word counter displayed a second result in red.
LIMIT EXCEEDED: 1,217 WORDS MUST BE CUT BEFORE FINAL DELIVERY.