Chapter 3 - EIGHTY-SEVEN HOURS.
Ray wanted to plug the USB drive into his laptop immediately.
Emily stopped him.
“No.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know what’s on it.”
“Exactly.”
“That’s not a reason to put random files on your computer.”
Ray stared at her.
“You learned that at community college?”
“I learned it from being born after 1970.”
Ray put the drive down.
They called a legal-aid clinic instead.
That decision disappointed Ray.
It also made Emily feel better.
For the first time since walking out of Forge, they were doing something that did not depend on anger.
The clinic could not represent her immediately, but an intake worker directed them toward the state labor department and a local employment attorney who offered short consultations for wage disputes.
The attorney’s name was Leah Grant.
She wore glasses, talked fast, and corrected Ray twice when he tried calling the entire situation “theft.”
“We can use emotional words at home,” she said. “With agencies, we use what we can establish.”
Ray liked her less after that.
Emily liked her more.
Leah examined Emily’s notebook.
Schedules.
Texts.
Bank deposits.
Cash records.
Photos of posted shifts.
Messages from Mack.
Can you cover until close?
Need you in at 4.
Stay after and finish laundry.
Move tomorrow’s start back two hours.
Your pay is short this week. I’ll fix it Friday.
Leah looked up.
“This is better documentation than most people bring me.”
Emily felt embarrassed by the compliment.
“I thought I was being paranoid.”
“You were being organized.”
Ray pointed at the $312 check.
“They’re calling her a volunteer intern now.”
Leah read the memo.
“Interesting.”
“That means they can avoid paying her?”
“No.”
Ray relaxed.
Leah held up a finger.
“It also doesn’t automatically mean they owe exactly what Emily calculated. We determine classification, hours, rate, and documentation.”
Ray sighed.
Emily smiled.
“Facts.”
Leah looked at her.
“Exactly.”
Ray muttered, “Everybody loves facts until somebody owes money.”
Leah almost laughed.
They discussed the anonymous USB.
Leah advised them not to alter it.
A digital forensics service could create an image of the drive and identify files safely.
That cost money.
Of course it did.
Everything involved money.
The first estimate was $450.
Ray reached for his wallet.
Emily stopped him.
“No.”
“It’s evidence.”
“It might be somebody’s grocery list.”
“You want to know?”
“Yes.”
“Then we pay.”
“You need truck brakes.”
“I have brakes.”
“They squeal.”
“That means they’re communicating.”
Leah stared at him.
“Please fix your brakes.”
Emily laughed for the first time since the gym.
They found a cheaper service through Leah’s office.
The drive contained eight video files and a spreadsheet.
Nothing explosive.
No dramatic secret vault.
The videos appeared to have been recorded on a phone over several months.
Staff area.
Front desk.
Training floor.
Different dates.
The person holding the camera stayed out of frame.
The first video showed a young janitor arguing with Mack about thirty missing dollars.
“You clocked out early.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You left the desk.”
“To take trash out.”
“Then you weren’t working.”
Ray stopped the video.
“That’s insane.”
Emily nodded.
“I remember him.”
“What’s his name?”
“Tyler. He quit.”
The second clip showed a woman Ray had never met asking about overtime.
Mack replied, “Nobody here gets rich cleaning mats.”
Dustin laughed in the background.
The third showed Emily.
She had not known anyone was filming.
She stood behind the front counter holding her phone.
Mack faced her.
“I told you next pay period.”
Emily said, “You said that last pay period.”
“You need the money that badly?”
“Yes.”
Mack looked irritated by the honesty.
“Then maybe don’t argue with the people giving you opportunities.”
The video ended.
Emily sat completely still.
Ray watched her.
“You okay?”
“I forgot he said it like that.”
“What?”
“Giving me opportunities.”
Ray leaned back.
The language was familiar.
He had spent thirty years doing work for people wealthier than him.
Some treated him like a professional.
Others acted as if hiring a carpenter meant purchasing the right to talk down to one.
One homeowner once followed Ray from room to room because she was afraid he might steal jewelry.
Another had asked him to use the side bathroom because the powder room was “for guests.”
Ray had laughed about it afterward.
He had never told Emily.
Maybe he should have.
Class humiliation worked best when everyone experiencing it thought it was personal.
The spreadsheet on the drive was more complicated.
Names.
Dates.
Hours.
Cash amounts.
Initials.
Deductions.
It did not look like official payroll.
Leah warned them not to assume authenticity.
“Who created it?”
“We don’t know,” Emily said.
“Where did they get the information?”
“We don’t know.”
“Could numbers be wrong?”
“Yes.”
Ray sighed loudly.
Leah ignored him.
“What it can do is give us leads.”
There were eleven worker names.
Emily recognized seven.
Three still worked at Forge.
Two had quit.
Two she had never met.
Amounts marked HOLD appeared beside several names.
One entry beside Emily:
87 hrs disputed.
Ray pointed.
“That matches.”
Leah nodded.
“It supports her record if authenticated.”
Below Emily’s name appeared another note.
CUT AFTER COMPLAINT.
Her schedule retaliation.
Ray’s jaw tightened.
Then he saw Dustin’s name.
Unlike staff, Dustin had no hourly entries.
Instead:
HOUSING.
TRAVEL.
RECOVERY.
PRIVATE SESSIONS.
BONUS.
Every line contained larger numbers.
Emily stared.
“In one month they spent more on his recovery treatments than they paid me the whole time I worked there.”
Ray said nothing.
That was not automatically wrong.
Dustin was a fighter.
Different job.
Different value to the business.
But the contrast hurt because Emily had been told Forge could not afford her missing wages.
The money existed.
It had simply belonged to priorities above her.
Leah began contacting former employees.
Some ignored her.
One said he wanted nothing to do with Forge.
Another asked whether Mack would find out.
Fear mattered.
Employment communities were small.
Gyms were smaller.
People worried about references.
Access.
Being labeled difficult.
Emily understood.
A former front-desk worker named Tasha Reed finally agreed to speak.
They met at a diner.
Tasha was thirty-two with two children and a nursing-assistant job at a senior facility.
Forge had been her second job.
“I left because I got tired of begging for my own money.”
Emily leaned forward.
“How much did he owe?”
“About eleven hundred.”
“Did you get it?”
“Seven hundred.”
“What happened to the rest?”
Tasha laughed.
“Apparently I had attitude.”
Ray looked confused.
“Attitude costs four hundred dollars?”
“At Forge it did.”
Tasha explained Mack created informal deductions.
Lost towels.
Late cleanup.
Broken equipment.
Uniform replacements.
Even when staff disputed responsibility.
“I needed rent,” Tasha said. “You know how that works. Somebody owes you a thousand, offers seven hundred, and suddenly seven hundred feels like winning.”
Emily knew exactly how it worked.
Rich people could wait.
Working people made decisions according to Friday.
Tasha recognized the spreadsheet format.
She had seen similar pages on Mack’s clipboard.
That did not fully authenticate the anonymous file.
But it helped.
Then she looked at Emily.
“You know why he hates you, right?”
Emily frowned.
“He doesn’t hate me.”
Tasha gave her a look.
“He cut your schedule after you embarrassed Dustin.”
“When?”
“The hand-wrap thing.”
Ray turned.
“What hand-wrap thing?”
Emily’s expression changed.
Tasha immediately realized Ray did not know.
“Oh.”
Ray looked at his daughter.
“What happened?”
“It was stupid.”
“What happened?”
Emily rubbed her forehead.
“Dustin wanted me to wrap his hands.”
“You know how?”
“Basic wrap. Not fight prep.”
“Then?”
“I told him I was leaving.”
Tasha interrupted.
“That’s not the whole story.”
Emily looked at her.
“Tasha.”
“He told you to kneel.”
Ray became completely still.
Emily spoke quickly.
“Because his hands were already up and he was sitting on the bench. It wasn’t—”
Tasha shook her head.
“He said, ‘Get down there and do your job.’”
Ray stared at Emily.
“What did you do?”
“I told him no.”
Tasha nodded.
“And Dustin made sure everyone heard.”
Ray’s voice became quiet.
“He touched you?”
“No.”
The answer came immediately.
“No, Dad. He didn’t.”
Ray exhaled.
Important.
Emily continued.
“He held the wraps out. I wouldn’t take them. He threw them on the floor.”
Tasha added, “Then told her to pick them up.”
Ray closed his eyes.
Emily said, “I left them.”
“Good.”
“Mack cut two shifts the next week.”
Leah had been taking notes.
“Do you have the schedule from before and after?”
Emily nodded.
Photos.
Everything was somewhere in that notebook.
Tasha looked toward the window before continuing.
“There’s another reason Dustin went after your dad.”
Ray opened his eyes.
“What?”
“Mack had been talking about Emily before you arrived.”
“What did he say?”
Tasha looked at Emily.
“He told Dustin your dad was coming to demand money.”
Emily frowned.
“How would Mack know?”
“I heard him on the phone.”
“When?”
“Maybe an hour before Ray arrived.”
Tasha lowered her voice.
“Mack said, ‘Let the old man come. Dustin can handle him.’”
Ray stared.
Emily’s face changed.
“What are you saying?”
May you like
Tasha looked between them.
“I’m saying I don’t think that confrontation surprised the Coach at all.”
