That was when I knew.
She was not their ally in spirit.
Maybe in paperwork. Maybe in practice. But not in heart.
A few days later, I stayed late. I had told Zolani Jabari was with a neighbor because I had extra cleaning to finish. The office gradually emptied until only Mrs. Eleanor and I remained.
Her computer restarted after an update.
Instead of opening to the fake loss sheet she usually worked on, it flashed a different Excel file across the screen before she rose to get more coffee.
The filename was goldmine.xlsx.
My pulse went wild.
I glanced toward the break area. She was still turned away.
I clicked.
The file opened, and for a few seconds I forgot to breathe.
This was not a company on the edge of bankruptcy.
This was a thriving business.
Signed contracts. Real incoming payments. Transfers into an account tied to a company called Cradle and Sons LLC.
Cradle.
That was Zolani’s father’s surname.
The shell company.
The diverted assets.
The so-called losses were fiction. The real books showed over two million dollars in net profit.
I scrambled to look for a USB drive in her drawer and found nothing. Footsteps sounded behind me. I minimized the file and slapped the fake loss report back onto the screen just as she returned.
She sat down, reopened the bogus report, and kept working as if nothing had happened.
Had she noticed?
Had she left that file visible on purpose?
I couldn’t tell.
But I now knew exactly where the treasure was buried.
That night, on the way home after I picked up Jabari, I stopped at a tiny electronics shop and bought the cheapest black 16GB USB drive I could find. I hid it in my bra and barely slept.
The next morning I went in with a plan.
I had brought a small bottle of water tucked inside my cleaning bucket.
The opportunity didn’t come at lunch. Zahara stayed behind that day looking tired, and Zolani was hovering too much. I waited. Patience, I told myself. Predators who move too early go hungry.
Then, later that afternoon, Zahara slumped at her desk looking pale. Zolani fussed over her and decided to take her out for chicken noodle soup. He left me “in charge,” which was laughable, but useful.
Now only Mrs. Eleanor and I remained.
She was eating lunch at her desk.
I rolled the cart toward the coffee area, plugged in the electric kettle—but not all the way—and poured water straight onto the outlet.
The spark was instant.
A sharp crack. A brief blue flash. The smell of scorched plastic.
The breaker tripped and the office went black.
“My God!” Mrs. Eleanor shouted.
I ran in looking frightened, which required almost no acting at all. “It sparked! I’m sorry, it sparked!”
She grabbed her phone flashlight and hurried over. “Go to the main panel by the entrance. Flip the big red breaker.”
This was exactly what I needed.
I ran to the panel, took just long enough pretending to be confused, then clicked the breaker back up. The lights returned.
“Bring a dry cloth!” she called.
Instead I ran to her desk.
The computer had power again. I turned it on, shoved in my USB drive, and navigated with shaking hands to the accounting folder.
Goldmine.xlsx.
I clicked.
A password box appeared.
My blood ran cold.
Password.
I scanned the desk. A yellow Post-it stuck to the monitor read Santi’s bday 15. I tried a version of that. Wrong. I looked at a calendar with Christmas circled in red. 1225. Wrong again.
“Kemet!” Mrs. Eleanor called. “What’s taking so long?”
Panic surged through me. I yanked the USB out, grabbed the first cloth I saw, and stumbled toward the coffee area pretending I had simply gotten lost in the dark.
Mrs. Eleanor went back to her desk grumbling. I hovered behind her, heart banging against my ribs.
She clicked the file herself.
The password prompt appeared.
And then I saw enough.
Not each key clearly, but enough to piece it together.
Eleanor1978.
The file opened.
My God.
There it was. The answer. I had the path and now the password.
I had missed the window, but I had learned what I needed.
Still, I felt sick with frustration. I spent the rest of that day moving through the office like a ghost.
Then fate gave me one more opening.
At the very end of the day, Zahara started up her weak-and-weary act again. Zolani fussed over her and decided to take her home. He told Mrs. Eleanor the quarterly reconciliation could wait until morning. The rest of the staff left soon after.
Ten minutes later, I stood at her desk with the office nearly empty.
I inserted the USB drive.
Right-clicked.
