The Enemy Who Knew My Name novel · Chapter 1 of 4
Chapter 1: Maeve Quinn, Forensic Auditor
Nora presents false credentials as Maeve Quinn, survives Caden Bryce recognizing her in a Salter boardroom, studies his access routes, and finds a warning card beneath her keyboard.
Nora was explaining her fabricated qualification when Caden Bryce opened the boardroom door and took the chair opposite her.
‘The certification was completed through Kincaid Forensics,’ she said. ‘The reference is attached to the final page.’
Caden closed the door behind him. He wore a battered leather jacket, dark denim, and boots marked with dried mud. A leather folio hung from his left hand.
He had been paid to find Nora Vane.
She kept one finger on the printed reference and looked at Rowan Salter.
‘The dates are correct,’ she continued. ‘The audit work covered procurement fraud, duplicate reimbursement, and concealed related-party payments.’
The name Maeve Quinn sat at the top of every page.
Caden looked at her.
Nora counted the seconds by the movement of Rowan’s hand over the table. One. Two. Three. The room had gone still around the presentation, though nobody else seemed to notice why.
Caden did not blink.
He had always been good at waiting. She knew that from the case reports, the ones Salter had commissioned and then quietly buried.
Ten seconds passed.
Nora turned the page.
‘My previous work was mostly recovery-based,’ she said. ‘I am less interested in identifying a loss than in finding the first person who benefited from it.’
‘That sounds rather direct,’ Genevieve Salter said.
She sat three places down from Rowan in a cream cashmere sweater, one hand resting near a cup of untouched coffee. Her smile made the room feel smaller.
‘It saves time,’ Nora said.
Genevieve touched her earlobe.
The gesture lasted less than a second.
There were ten people at the table, and only four had been given coffee. Genevieve had poured Rowan’s herself. Nora’s cup held water from a glass jug with a chipped rim.
Her chair was lower than everyone else’s.
It placed her shoulders below the table line whenever she sat back.
‘Maeve, would you pass the financial schedule to Mr Bryce?’ Genevieve asked.
Nora slid the papers across the polished wood.
Caden stopped them with two fingers before they reached him.
His hand was broad, scarred across the knuckles, and steady. He did not open the folio beside it.
The folio had been present in every photograph attached to his reports. He carried it into meetings and never used it.
Genevieve watched Nora notice it.
‘Mr Bryce has been reviewing the internal controls,’ she said. ‘His perspective will be useful while you settle in.’
‘I’m sure it will,’ Nora said.
‘You’ll report to Stewart Hale for the first quarter. He prefers a cautious approach, particularly with new staff.’
Stewart sat at the far side of the table. He did not greet her. Fourteen months earlier, he had built Nora’s whistleblower case file and argued in two hearings that her evidence was clean.
Now he removed the schedule from Caden’s reach and set it beside himself.
‘We do not distribute unverified working papers,’ Stewart said.
‘The pages are marked draft,’ Nora said.
‘The board has agreed that your access will be limited until we know how you work.’
Her access card lay on the table beside Rowan’s silver pocket watch. Rowan had been given a black security pass. Hers was white and printed with VISITOR in red.
‘That seems efficient,’ Nora said.
Genevieve’s smile widened.
‘It is temporary, Maeve. We have had some unfortunate experiences with staff who believed their seniority entitled them to wider access.’
The room accepted the sentence.
A junior solicitor named Calum Grant glanced at Nora’s coat, then at the visitor pass.
‘Facilities can show you the temporary workroom,’ he said. ‘It’s on the lower floor, beside the archive loading bay.’
He thought she was an external contractor.
Nora had spent her career being mistaken for someone who needed permission to enter a room.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I have always enjoyed working near exits.’
Calum laughed before he realized she had not made a joke.
Bex would have approved of the timing. She would also have called the chair terrible and eaten the shortbread provided for guests.
The plate sat in the centre of the table. Everyone had taken one except Nora. Genevieve moved it toward Rowan, then placed the last piece on his saucer without looking at her.
‘You should meet Fiona before you leave,’ Genevieve said. ‘She manages staff welfare and can explain the reporting structure.’
Fiona Drum sat beside the windows. She had once been Nora’s emergency contact and had co-signed her Edinburgh lease.
She gave Nora a careful smile.
‘If you need anything, Maeve, you can come to me,’ Fiona said. ‘We understand that starting over can be disorienting.’
Nora placed both hands flat on the table.
She did not look at Fiona’s left wrist, where the old leather bracelet remained. Nora had bought it for her after three nights of document review before the arrest.
‘That is kind,’ Nora said.
‘The board is particularly sensitive about confidentiality,’ Genevieve continued. ‘People under strain can misremember what they have seen, and we prefer to protect them from difficult conclusions.’
Nora knew the sentence was meant for someone else in the room.
Caden’s gaze moved to Genevieve, then returned to Nora.
He had heard the same language in the investigation file. Concern. Confusion. Pressure. A reasonable mistake.
She had been processed by better words than these.
Rowan finally lifted his eyes from the credentials.
‘The reference is unusually strong,’ he said. ‘You describe Ms Quinn as the most rigorous analyst Kincaid has employed.’
‘They were generous.’
‘Generosity is not generally a feature of audit references.’
His pale eyes stayed on her face.
Rowan had written a stronger reference for Nora himself. He had called her the most rigorous forensic mind he had encountered in thirty years.
‘Perhaps they were having a good afternoon,’ she said.
For the first time, Genevieve looked directly at Caden.
‘Mr Bryce, do you have any concerns about our appointment?’
Caden rested his hand on the unopened folio.
‘The credentials appear sound.’
‘Appear?’ Stewart asked.
‘That is the useful word in an investigation.’
Nobody answered him.
Nora felt the old instinct rise, the quick reach through her hair, the turn away from a face that had become dangerous.
She stopped her hand before it moved.
Caden had seen the habit before. He had seen her do it in the recordings, in the last footage taken before Nora Vane died.
His expression did not change.
Genevieve closed the folder.
‘Then we are finished. Maeve, Stewart will arrange your files. Please remember that discretion is valued here above initiative.’
‘That explains the number of locked doors,’ Nora said.
This time nobody laughed.
Rowan rose first. His chair made no sound against the carpet. Genevieve followed, touching her earlobe as she gathered her papers.
Caden remained seated.
‘Your new auditor is thorough,’ he said to Rowan, loud enough for the room. ‘I hope she stays that way.’
The sentence was polite. The warning underneath it was not.
Nora turned toward him with a small, professional smile.
‘That is the plan.’
She left before Genevieve could ask another personal question.
The stairwell door shut behind her, and the tower’s heat disappeared. Through the narrow window, Princes Street Gardens lay below in the blue autumn dusk, with buses passing along the wet road.
Nora took out her phone and opened the notes app.
She recorded the boardroom positions, the pass levels, the camera above the lifts, and the route Caden had taken from reception.
He used the east stairwell. He avoided the main lifts. He carried the folio through every security point. His investigator pass opened internal doors that her visitor card could not.
Caden thought he was deciding when she would be exposed.
She would let him keep that belief.
The last three documents were somewhere inside Salter’s server system. Piers had eight weeks before sentencing, and his solicitor still had nothing capable of moving the court.
Nora put the phone away.
She had come back for records, not vindication. The distinction would keep her alive.
At the temporary workroom, the desk stood beneath a flickering strip light beside the archive loading bay. A box of unused stationery occupied the chair.
The keyboard had been placed at an angle, its cable looped twice around the monitor stand.
Nora stopped beside it.
She had left the keyboard square with the desk.
A white index card showed beneath the lower edge.
She pulled it free with two fingers.
The handwriting was narrow, deliberate, and unmistakable.
I know who you are. I am not your enemy. Do not run.
Nora’s hand closed around the card.
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