Chapter 142

• It was mid-morning when Claudia came into my office with a clipboard in one hand and her phone in the other. She didn’t say much at first, just set the clipboard on my desk and tapped her pen against the margin where she had circled a line in red.
• “What is it?” I asked, already sensing from her expression that it wasn’t just a routine check.
• “The new batch came in,” she said. “I ran the first few rolls through the scanner, and the readings don’t match the supplier’s certification.”