HARLENE’S OFFICE – LATE AFTERNOON
The room is silent save for the faint ticking of the antique wall clock. Papers sit in neat stacks on the desk, untouched. The tea on the side table has gone cold.
Harlene sits by the window, her attention far away, until the door opens—slowly, deliberately.
She doesn’t turn. She doesn’t need to.
She already feels it—a shift in the air, a heaviness that only ever comes with Eliot’s guilt.
He enters, holding a thick folder in his hand, his knuckles pale from how tightly he grips it.
He says nothing.
But he doesn’t need to.
Harlene turns to face him, eyes narrowing with a slow, sinking dread.
“Did something bad happen?” Her voice is calm, but a storm trembles beneath it.
Eliot moves like a man carrying a coffin, placing the folder on her desk without a word.
“Eliot…” She called out to him.
She studies his face, drawn, haunted. The way his shoulders slope with shame, how his mouth refuses to form the words.
She reaches out and touches the folder. Clueless
