The Company Diet

Elena adjusted her glasses in the reflection of the glass doors, the same way she'd done for eighteen months as a senior analyst at Holton Biopharmaceuticals. The vitamin supplement division had been her specialty, her cover, her entire fabricated life. Today, she was finally supposed to get the evidence she needed to blow the whistle on their clinical trial fraud.

She'd arrived early, knowing Marcus Chen—the VP she'd been secretly investigating—walked his dog, an ancient golden retriever named Buster, through the corporate campus at 6:15 AM every morning. Their paths had crossed dozens of times. She'd offered treats. She'd asked about Buster's arthritis. She'd become the kind of colleague who cared.

"Morning, Elena," Marcus called, waving with his free hand. "Buster says thanks for the joint supplements you recommended. He's like a puppy again."

Elena's stomach tightened. The supplements. She'd researched them thoroughly, found the most effective ones, printed out dosing schedules. She hadn't been pretending then.

"Any progress on the Vitamin D trial data?" she asked, falling into step beside them. Her thumb drive burned in her pocket.

Marcus's face fell. "They're halting the study. The placebo group actually performed better. It's embarrassing, but we're publishing the null results. Full transparency."

Elena stopped walking. The whistleblower inside her screamed that this was a lie, a cover story. But the man in front of her—whose dog she knew, whose wife had sent her homemade cookies when Elena's mother died—looked defeated, not deceitful.

"You're not suppressing it?"

"God, no." Marcus laughed bitterly. "My wife says Buster's the only reason I haven't had a heart attack from stress. Maybe I should be taking those vitamins instead."

Buster nudged Elena's hand with his wet nose, demanding attention. She scratched behind his ears, the way she knew he liked.

Later that night, Elena deleted the stolen files from her laptop. Some secrets weren't worth the cost of discovery.