Alice had noticed that Eastgate’s invoices arrived on Fridays, often just before payroll decisions, and that their descriptions changed without any corresponding change in work performed.

She had asked a supervisor about it and been told the consulting expenses were approved by people in Charlotte, too important for her to question.

“I thought perhaps I was missing something,” Alice told us.

“But the figures never matched what was happening on the floor.”

Meredith asked why she had kept the notebook.

“My father taught me that when numbers don’t make sense, you write them down before someone changes the story.”

Her records did not solve the case by themselves.