The Palm Reader's Secret

The lightning split the sky outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of the 42nd floor, illuminating Elena's face in stark flashes as she traced the lines on my palm. Her office—*our* office, until ten minutes ago—smelled of expensive gin and expensive betrayal.

"You have a short life line," she said, her voice husky from too many scotches at the going-away party she'd thrown for me. "But a deep one."

I laughed, pulling my hand away. "You're the one who's been running corporate intelligence for KenderTech for three years, Elena. Not a palm reader. Though I suppose both trades involve telling people what they want to hear."

The thunder that followed made the glass shudder.

She didn't deny it. Just swirled her drink, the ice clinking like distant gunfire. "They offered me partnership. A real one. Not the fake equity strings they gave you."

"So you sold me out."

"I saved your career." She finally looked at me, and I saw something break behind her eyes—something that had been bending for a long time. "The audit was coming whether I helped them or not. At least this way, you leave with a severance package and your reputation mostly intact."

The worst part wasn't that she'd been their spy. It was that she believed she'd done me a favor. That after seven years of friendship, of building our division together, she genuinely thought this was how you treated someone you loved.

"Did you ever actually care?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.

"Care about what? The company? The mission?" She finished her drink in one swallow. "Honey, we've been running a Ponzi scheme with better PR since day one. I just decided to get paid for the inevitable collapse."

Another flash of lightning turned her silver hair momentarily white, and I realized I was looking at a stranger. The friend I'd mourned tonight had never actually existed—not the way I thought.

"The board meeting's at nine tomorrow," she said, already turning back to her computer screen. "They'll expect your resignation letter by noon."

I walked to the elevator without looking back. The doors closed on Elena bathed in the blue light of her monitor, and I understood suddenly that we'd both been running from the same thing all along: the knowledge that we were never the good guys in this story.

The difference was, she'd finally made peace with it.