The investigators who had descended on the office on Monday morning had confiscated her phone, laptop, and everything in her desk drawer—ignoring her protest that her favorite lipstick and her extra pair of stockings were unrelated to illegal stock tips. Human resources had handed out pink slips to all staff members who had reported directly to the soon to be indicted CFO before the end of the day, cleaning house in an effort to prove to their stockholders that they were on top of the situation, and she’d spent the rest of the week with investigators, answering questions about her boss, his habits, and every single person she’d ever seen go into his office.

They’d done it partly to be thorough—they must have put every piece of paper, email, and financial transaction from the last ten years in front of her over the course of those five days—and partially as cover. None of her co-workers knew she was the one who’d blown the whistle on Arthur and his felonious activities, and she was keen to keep it that way. It would come out eventually, but hopefully by then the world would have moved on to bigger, uglier scandals.

After a week of sitting in a windowless room with investigators and her older brother the lawyer, whose pugnacious and confrontational nature was finally doing her some good, they’d thanked her for her help and returned her lipstick and stockings. Her phone and her laptop were still considered evidence, since she’d used both for work, so she was using her mom’s old phone and her sister’s old laptop until she could buy new ones.

She could only be grateful that she’d had the forethought to restrict her porn consumption to her personal tablet.

Still, she needed both a phone and a computer, and wouldn’t be able to afford to replace either until she got a new job.

She’d worked her way through a half dozen listings—all of them below her previous salary—when she realized she was out of coffee. She glanced up to hail a server and noticed with dismay that the café had filled up. She waited, hopeful one of the two servers bustling about would see her raised hand, but when neither of them acknowledged her after a few minutes, she scooped up her empty cup. Despite the crowd, there was only one person waiting at the takeout counter, so she draped her coat over her laptop and slid out of the booth.