01
The story
The short version. Thriller, 30 episodes on YourChannel. Claire is installed as the board's new independent director, supposedly a neutral pawn the chair can use to push out the CEO.
The board meeting opens on a seventy-three-day-late acquisition audit. Nora puts the weight of the whole room on the newcomer. Alexander is blunter, privately telling her she was hired as a neutral-looking pawn to push him out. Claire's reply is already in the paperwork: the complete post-closing accounting was due within sixty days, and today is day seventy-three. She did not come to be managed — she came to read the books.
Nora makes her move next, cornering Claire to ask her to help the board keep an eye on the impulsive Alex. But Alexander has already shown Claire the working copies: his father discovered Nora moving assets, and three weeks later he was dead, officially a heart attack. He has spent twelve years trying to prove it was not. Claire is the first person with independent authority willing to follow the numbers all the way through.
The preliminary numbers arrive, and they do not reconcile. Three acquisition transfers went to two affiliated companies. Both use the same Winton law firm as their registered agent, and that firm has represented Nora for years. Claire logs the anomalies in the audit committee's secure repository. She does not leak or grandstand; she gives management the chance. That restraint is the whole reason he trusts her.
Series facts checked against the YourChannel listing. Notes cover the opening episodes only; nothing here reveals the ending.