THE LAST FILE · EPISODE 18

Protection Without Suspicion

The team writes down what Northstar will and won't do. The hardest line to fill in is the one about who holds the keys, including Alex.

4:30 PM. Tuesday.

The draft was up on the big screen in the meeting room. Priya had been rewriting it since Saturday and had given it a plain title: What we will and won't do.

Alex, Priya, Daniel, Maya and Neha sat around the table with a box of samosas from downstairs that nobody had touched yet. Everyone knew this was the answer to Friday's anonymous question.

The first half had been easy. Purpose: notice when client files leave the company in unusual ways. Not included: messages, screens, personal accounts, personal phones. Nobody had argued with any of it.

Then Priya scrolled to the next line. It was blank.

Alex laughed, then saw she wasn't joking.

"Hear me out," Priya said.