Across from him sat Cassandra Crane. The HR Director looked like a woman who’d just bitten into a lemon and was forced to pretend it was a peach.

“Grayson, this sets a remarkably dangerous precedent,” Cassandra said, her voice tight. “We can’t bypass standard filtering protocols just because an applicant arrives with a dramatic, unverifiable story.”

Grayson didn’t look at her. He looked at me. “Is it unverifiable?”

I pulled my cracked phone from my pocket, opened the messages, and showed them the blurry photo the boy’s frantic mother had texted me fifteen minutes earlier from the ambulance. You saved my son. Please tell me your name so he can thank you when he stops shaking.

The silence in the office was heavy.

Then Grayson sat down and steepled his fingers. “Why do you want to work here, Nora?”