Iris identifies the printer log and board packet version as the first verification path. Tamsin agrees to hold pub...
Tamsin Vale did not offer coffee when Iris stepped into The Ledger Lamp newsroom. She pushed a cropped image across a steel interview table and planted two fingers over the missing header.
"If I publish this, Owen Pryce sues me by noon," Tamsin said. "If I do not publish it, Cassian keeps telling the market you hid the fraud."
The image showed the bottom half of Iris's March memo: vendor rebate exposure, side-letter repayment risk, and a recommendation to suspend Athena Grid diligence. The signature block was hers. The attachment list was there. The board packet header, version stamp, and routing footer had been cut away.
On the newsroom wall, Helix Meridian traded down only two percent. Cassian's morning interview looped under the quote: CONTROL RESET REASSURES LENDERS.
Iris touched the cropped edge. "Where did you get this?"
"A nervous person who understands printers better than privilege."
"Name."
"Custody first." Tamsin leaned forward. "I have a partial memo. You have a destroyed career. Neither of us has a chain that survives Helix counsel."
The exchange shifted the room. Tamsin was not begging Iris for outrage. She was pricing delay.
"You held it," Iris said.
"I held it because a bad publication helps Owen. He will say you fed me stolen fragments after termination. He will make the story about your conduct instead of the missing packet."
That was correct, which made it more irritating.
Iris slid the image back. "Then I need the printer."
Tamsin's eyebrows lifted. "That is not the dramatic answer."
"The dramatic answer loses. Board packet version 4B had a footer. If your source saw the print job, there is a device log: user, time, file hash, page count, tray, and reprint count. Helix can bury a memo inside privilege. It cannot make a printer forget at the same speed."
Tamsin tapped one nail against the table. "Harbor Data Room. Eleven-thirty. Ask for Nella Cho."
The neutral diligence suite sat above a ferry terminal, with rented conference rooms named after ports and a copier that printed every visitor badge in black-and-white. Nella Cho waited in Room C with her purse on her lap and both hands wrapped around a paper cup she had not drunk from.
She looked smaller out of Helix's finance floor, as if the company badge had been holding her posture up.
"I should not be here," Nella said before Iris closed the door.
"You should not have had to be."
Nella flinched at kindness, then pulled a folded schedule from her purse. "I cannot testify. My severance review is next week. Veta Kline already told my manager I was careless with controls."
"Were you?"
"No."
"Then help me prove it."
Nella pushed the schedule across the table. It listed board packet versions for March seventeenth. Version 4A at 6:12 p.m. Version 4B at 11:43 p.m. Version 4C at 7:04 a.m. the next morning.
"Your memo was in 4B," Nella whispered. "I saw it because the file stalled in the forty-second floor print queue. Ruth Mallo's assistant called because the packet was missing tab six. I released the queue manually."
"Who pulled 4C?"
"Owen's office. Different cover sheet. Same meeting title. Tab six gone."
Iris felt the first clean click of a chain catching. "Can you get the print logs?"
Nella shook her head too quickly. "Not from inside. After your firing, they restricted finance access. But the logs export nightly to the vendor maintenance portal. Helix never turned off the outside copier service account."
"Nella."
"I know." Her fingers tightened around the cup until the lid bent. "It gets worse. The same device printed four Copperline credit memos after midnight. I thought it was cleanup. But the invoice dates were wrong."
Iris went very still. "Credit memos booked as rebate income?"
"Yes. They were printed at 12:18, 12:22, 12:29, and 12:31. Veta signed the originals the next morning."
The room's rented quiet suddenly felt thin. Outside the glass wall, a ferry horn dragged through the harbor fog.
Tamsin, who had been silent by the door, said, "If the printer connects the missing memo to backdated credit memos, I can hold a story for that. Not forever."
"How long?"
"Forty-eight hours before my editor asks why I am sitting on a CFO document everyone else wants to bury."
Nella looked between them. "If my name appears, I lose my pension review."
Iris did not promise safety she could not buy. Raven had already taught her that every position needed collateral.
"Your name stays out until there is a lawful path," Iris said. "But I need the maintenance portal export and the board packet version list."
"That is two sources," Tamsin said. "Document trail and system log."
"Not enough for court. Enough for Raven to value the next instrument."
Nella's face paled. "You know about Raven?"
That changed the table more sharply than any confession. Nella had not stumbled into this. She knew there was a place where secrets carried prices, and fear had kept her from asking what her own knowledge was worth.
Iris softened her voice. "I know enough not to sell you."
For the first time, Nella met her eyes. "Then do not let Veta sell me either."
Iris folded the version schedule into the termination packet, away from Tamsin's camera and Nella's trembling hands.
"Tonight," Iris said, "we get the printer logs."
Nella opened her purse and removed a maintenance badge for a copier vendor no one had remembered to revoke.
"Then we start at Copperline," she said. "The warehouse stamp will show whether those credits were born before the goods arrived."