My Bestie Reported My Fake Degree, But My Real Identity Terrified Her Chapter 09

My Bestie Reported My Fake Degree, But My Real Identity Terrified Her Chapter 09

I nodded.

By the time I finished signing the materials and returned to the company, it was already four in the

afternoon.

Gemma was not at her desk.

Mia walked over and lowered her voice to a whisper. “She went into the director’s office and stayed there

with the door closed for almost an hour.”

“What did they talk about?”

“I don’t know. But when she came out, she looked terrible.”

I sat back down at the temporary desk.

There was an extra cup of coffee on it, already cold.

A sticky note was attached to the cup. The handwriting was Gemma’s: [Linnie, don’t work too hard.]

I peeled off the sticky note, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it into the trash.

“Help me look into something.”

When Gemma’s voice came through the phone, it was already eleven o’clock at night.

I didn’t know who was on the other end, but her tone carried an urgency pressed down to the breaking point.

I knew this because when she made that call, she forgot she was using the company landline.

And the extension

coed to that line happened to be beside my tenur

temporary desk.

I didn’t pick up the receiver. The speakerphone light on the extension was on, and her voice leaked out in

broken pieces.

“She was picked up by two people in uniform today. I need to know which department they were from.”

The person on the other end said something, but I couldn’t hear it clearly.

“I wrote down the plate number. It was a white U.S. Government plate. You have connections, so help me

check.”

There was another few seconds of silence.

“What do you mean you can’t check it? Last time, you looked up her National Student Clearinghouse record easily enough.”

The other person’s voice grew louder.

Gemma lowered her voice. “I know federal plates are different. But I need to confirm whether she’s putting

on an act.”

Putting on an act.

Even now, she still thought I was pretending.

The card was fake, the uniforms were costumes, and the car with U.S. Government plates was rented.

She would rather believe all of this was a clumsy counterattack than accept another possibility.

The call ended.

I turned off the extension’s speakerphone.

The next day was Thursday, the day of the summit.

At eight in the morning, the company received an official letter from a supervising federal authority.

The envelope was brown kraft paper. There was no agency name on it, only a string of numbers and an

embossed seal.

It was identical to the seal on my card.

After the director opened it and read it, he closed his office door.

Twenty minutes later, he called Gemma.

Gemma went into the director’s office. When she came out, she was clutching her phone so tightly that her

knuckles had gone

e.
She walked straight to my temporary desk.

“What did that letter h

“Ask the director.”

say?”

“He won’t let me see it.”

“Then he made the right call.”

Her lips pressed into a thin line, and her pearl earrings trembled.

“Lynn, what exactly did you do? You’ve been at this company for three years. You ate the same takeout as the rest of us and rode the same crowded subway. When did you become someone even the director doesn’t dare offend?”

“I haven’t changed. I’ve always been this way. You just never considered that possibility.”

She stared at me for five seconds.

Then she did something I didn’t expect.

She smiled.

It was not a fake smile, and it was not a cold smile. It was the kind of smile someone wore when they had burned the bridge behind them and decided to risk everything.

“Fine. Then I’ll see you at the summit.”

She turned and went back to her desk.

At ten in the morning, I arrived at corporate headquarters.

Auditorium One had already been set up. There were circular rows of seating, a central screen, and a summit

agenda booklet placed in front of every seat.

Attendees arrived one after another: technical directors from the branch offices, project leads, and senior

corporate executives.

Gemma arrived too.

She had changed into a navy suit, pinned her hair up again, and done her makeup so precisely that she looked as if she were about to sit for a corporate headshot.

She had brought a full set of protect materials and was preparing to present during the third agenda item.

Her project was third.

Mine was fourth.

She did not know what the fourth item was.

In th

agenda booklet,

e of the fourth item was covered by a black redaction bar.

Beside it were a few words: To Be Revealed On–Site.