Then he went downstairs and stood over Chloe Parker's desk.
"The stream deleted?"
"It's the gym's account, Kyle. There's a whole—"
"Delete the file, delete the archive, delete the backup. Today."
Chloe Parker was 26 years old, had worked that desk for three years, and had never once been told to delete anything. She waited until he went back upstairs. Then she put a drive into the side of the desktop. She dragged twenty-two minutes and four seconds onto it. She checked that it played. She zipped it into the inside pocket of her coat. Then she deleted everything exactly as instructed.
Martin Keenan spent Monday in his office with the folder open on the desk in front of him. A deputy came at 2:00 in the afternoon, polite and bored, and asked to see the paperwork for the event. Martin gave him the contract. The deputy read it, and then read it again, and asked who G. Archer was.
"That's what I'd like to know," Martin said.
Mason Clark came in at 3:00. He had a mark on the side of his neck, and he had not slept. He had a statement already typed on his phone. He read it out loud to the deputy without being asked. He said the girl had come in uninvited. He said she had provoked him in front of his students. He said he had offered her a supervised demonstration and that she had used illegal techniques on unprepared athletes. He said that as head coach, he had authority over that floor at the time. He said that last part twice because he liked how it sounded. Then he signed the statement.
Kyle emailed a copy to the state federation to support the complaint. The complaint needed a sworn account from a licensed coach. Mason Clark was the only licensed coach in the building.
Tanya Burke did not sleep Monday either. She sat at her kitchen table after her shift and wrote out everything she had seen, in order, with times on it off the parking receipt in her pocket. She got eight of the nine clinic women to sign it. On Tuesday morning, she drove it to the federation's district office herself. She put it in the hands of a receptionist. The receptionist read the first page and picked up her phone.
Martin Keenan read the contract eleven times on Monday. It was one page: Event: Women's Self-Defense Clinic.
Sunday, 10:00.
Host Facility: Rockbridge Combat Academy.