Page 106 of Empty Net
I realize I spoke aloud.
Alderman looks at me. "No what?"
"That room isn't the leak."
Legal says, "We can't rule anything out."
"I know that. But that room is not the leak."
This is not professional. It is also true in a way I cannot prove and therefore cannot use.
Alderman holds my gaze for one second. Then says to legal, "The personnel detail predates yesterday. Focus there first."
It is not a defense of the room, exactly.
It is not nothing.
The meeting ends without ending. Legal will respond requesting their evidence and warning against publication of confidential employment records. HR will audit access to the compliance file. Alderman will inform ownership. Mediarelations will prepare a holding statement that says nothing in several polished sentences.
And Nolan?
"I'll speak with him," Alderman says.
The words hit wrong.
"No."
"Caleb."
"No. He trusted me with this."
"And your name is in the inquiry, which means you are part of the matter under review. You cannot be the organization's notifier."
"I am not asking as the organization."
"That's the problem."
The sentence lands hard because it is correct.
I stand there in Alderman's office with my phone in my hand and the entire machinery of ethical procedure around me, and for the first time since the morning I disclosed the conflict, the process feels less like a structure I built and more like a locked room I am trapped inside.
"He'll think I let him find out from someone else," I say.
Alderman's face changes. Not much. Enough to show the human being under the title.
"I know."
"That is not acceptable."
"No," he says. "It isn't. It's also where we are."
Maribel says my name through the speaker, softer than before. "Caleb, we are trying to keep this from publishing. If we move cleanly, we may be able to contain it."
Contain it.
The word is so small for what is happening.
"And if we can't?"
