Transparency by Charles Royce (children's books read aloud txt) 📕

keyhole on the knob, something none of the other knobs have.

Please be unlocked, please be unlocked.

He places his oval key on the keypad. The lights swirl, he hears something unlock. He jostles the knob. It doesn’t turn.

Shit.

He runs his fingers across the top jamb of the door. No key. He looks at the fire extinguisher, checks above it, below it, inside the hose compartment. Nothing.

He closes the door that houses the hose, sees the detailed “IN CASE OF FIRE” instructions framed in plexiglass.

Details, he thinks.

“The key is in the details,” he says.

Kimberly’s goodbye email with the weird Bible verse at the end.

No, it couldn’t be. That would be next level spy shit.

He bends down and reads the instructions on how to operate the fire extinguisher—the hose, who to call in case of emergencies, the fine print. Just as he’s reading the final two paragraphs, using his finger to go line by line on the tiny type, searching for a clue to where the key may be hidden, he feels something odd.

He slides his two fingers along the covering and presses down. The pressure reveals the outline of a key, debossed in the thin plastic and paper underneath.

“Kimbo. You clever man.”

He pushes the plastic out of the slit at the top of the frame, folds the paper up. He grabs the key and slips it inside the deadbolt next to the twinkle in JFK’s eye.

It opens.

Through the sliver of the door, the bright overhead lights from the hallway illuminate the room. Six rows of file drawers on the left side of the storage closet go all the way to the ceiling. No camera in sight. He opens the door fully, checks the corners. Clear. He flips the light switch. A tiny ceiling light in the center barely adds to the light from the hallway, so he leaves the Kennedy door open.

Each row of files is numbered, each drawer is lettered. He goes to “4J” in the bottom center, bends down, opens it. He flips through the file names: A-B, C-E.

“F through J.” He pulls the folder, sits down on the floor and starts rummaging.

The very first subfile is labeled FALLBACK, typed in a courier font. Other folders are labeled by employee last names, some he knows personally.

Fitz, Jerome

Gaither, Matthew

Gunter, Pamela*

What’s with the asterisk?

He opens up Pamela’s file.

He sees photos of Pamela at a restaurant with a man.

Holy shit, that’s not her husband.

One photo shows the man holding her hand, the next one they’re kissing, in yet another they’re entering a hotel next to Central Park. Paperwork behind the photos shows the couple’s lengthy company email exchange—suggestive, often pornographic.

Jesus Christ. No wonder she told me to sign the nondisclosure agreement.

He flips hurriedly to another file: HARRISON, JOSH.*

Another asterisk.

He opens the file. Photos of Josh and Lennox fall into his lap: Josh and Lennox at a Chinese restaurant, Josh and Lennox entering Lennox’s condo, email after email of them fawning and pining for each other. He flips further. Printouts from his Grindr account, lewd photographs of Josh in compromising positions, copies of his illegal prescriptions for Klonopin and Xanax from his questionable pharmacist.

Damn.

In the back of his folder, Josh finds a typewritten letter.

For Josh,

It’s late, 2 a.m. I’m still at the office, slightly drunk, I’m scared. I know it’s the last time I’ll be here.

If you have made it this far, you’ve truly seen the depths of this company. Over the years, I’ve played such a huge part in all of this, and for that I apologize. The line began to get blurry after West’s first media acquisition, and by the time I realized what this company was really doing, there were no lines at all.

Until Walter was murdered. And then Lennox.

Kimbo, what have you done? he thinks. He continues reading.

Oh Josh, we had nothing to do with Lennox. I want you to know that. I know how much you loved him. Before he was murdered, Lennox and I were working together, collecting information to help bring down the company. I know West found out about him diverting the laundered money to another account, but if there was a plan to kill him, I would have known about it. If we did have something to do with his murder, I was not in the loop, and you know that I was privy to it all. Maybe West orchestrated something on his own. It certainly looks possible. Not probable, though; you know how he is.

Lennox and I tried so hard to be stealthy when collecting evidence on the organization. But their tentacles run deep. The paranoia has gotten out of control, and I believe I’ve been marked. And by the time you read this, I’ll either dead, or I’ve banished myself into exile as far away from these people as I can get. I’m frightened, as I’m sure you are now.

Got that right.

In this room is everything you need to know to continue our work. The rest is on the SSD I left for Jenna.

Now, about the SSD. By now you’ve figured out it’s a key. I’m the one who took it to my buddy at ArchEngine, had it fashioned together with the drive.

But whose key is it?

Josh flips the page.

Just before he passed, Lennox found this key in his husband Micah’s possession. He brought the key to me. I knew exactly what it was, so I had to tell him. Micah was a member of a secret group, a group West founded, run for the most part by me. The very next evening after Lennox brought me the key, he was killed. Again, please know I had no knowledge of what happened. I can only guess that West is the one who was surveilling Lennox and Micah on his own. Maybe he saw Lennox confront Micah about the key, I really don’t know. All I know is West had damaging information on both of them, Micah and Lennox.

Motherfucker, Josh thinks.

You see, over the years, we’ve collected dirt on many different employees, those marked