Chương 5
Mrs. Kim opened her door behind him. “Both of you come in. I made soup.”
Emily wanted her own shower, her own bed, the one lamp in the living room that flickered when the refrigerator started. She also knew Mrs. Kim would be offended for at least a week if they refused.
They went inside.
Mrs. Kim’s apartment smelled of ginger, laundry soap, and the menthol ointment she rubbed into her knees. Family photographs crowded every surface. Emily and Noah sat at the small kitchen table while Mrs. Kim ladled soup into bowls and pretended not to examine Emily’s face.
“So,” she said at last, “rich people.”
Noah snorted.
Emily wrapped both hands around the bowl. “That’s your question?”
“No. That is my diagnosis.”
Mrs. Kim had immigrated from South Korea more than thirty years earlier and considered directness a charitable act. She placed a spoon beside Emily’s bowl.
“Did they call police on you?”
“Yes.”
“Did police believe you?”
“There’s video.”
“Video is good.”
“Video is complicated,” Emily said, repeating Officer Park’s warning.
Mrs. Kim frowned. “Video is good until rich person hires man to say video is bad.”
Noah pointed at her with his spoon. “Exactly.”
“Stop enjoying this,” Emily said.
“I’m not enjoying it.”
“You look like you are.”
“I’m enjoying being right about the green-dress woman.”
Mrs. Kim sat down. “What does she want?”
Emily’s spoon paused halfway to her mouth.
The question had troubled her since Officer Park asked about the invoices. Planting the necklace had required access, timing, and a reason strong enough to risk everything Victoria had risked. Fear of a maid’s note seemed both too small and exactly large enough. People had destroyed lives for less when they believed the person beneath them would not be believed.
“I found duplicate foundation invoices,” Emily said.
Noah leaned back. “You didn’t mention that.”
“I didn’t know it mattered.”
“Of course it matters.”
“It might be accounting error.”
“Then why plant diamonds in your bag?”
Mrs. Kim nodded. “He is right twice. Bad day for you.”
Noah smiled despite himself.
Emily ate two spoonfuls of soup before her stomach rejected the idea of more. She told them about the anonymous message.
“Call,” Noah said.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t know who it is.”
“That’s why you call.”
“That is the opposite of why you call.”
Mrs. Kim held out her hand. Emily gave her the phone.
The older woman read the messages and returned it. “Save them somewhere else.”
“I took a screenshot.”
“Send to me. Send to Noah. Email to yourself.”
Emily did.
“Now call police officer,” Mrs. Kim said.
“It’s almost midnight.”
“Police work at midnight.”
Emily searched the card Officer Park had given her and called the nonemergency number. She left a message with the information, including the unknown number. When she finished, Noah had opened his laptop.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Looking up Victoria.”
“Don’t.”
“She runs a charity. She’s public.”
“Noah.”
He turned the screen around.
A photograph showed Victoria beside Daniel at a foundation gala the previous year. She wore white, and her expression was softer than it had ever been inside the house. The caption described her as board chair of the Eleanor Vale Family Foundation, a philanthropic organization funding housing, food assistance, and women’s health programs across the county.
“Look at this,” Noah said.
“I’ve seen the website.”
“Not that.”
He scrolled to the list of staff departures.
Three finance directors in four years.
“That could mean anything,” Emily said.
“It means nobody keeps the job.”
Mrs. Kim carried the empty bowls to the sink. “Some jobs do not keep people. People keep jobs.”
Noah opened another search result. “There was a lawsuit.”
Emily leaned closer.
The article was three years old and brief. A former personal assistant had sued Victoria for wrongful termination and retaliation. The case had been settled, terms confidential.
The assistant’s name was Leah Brennan.
Emily looked at the unknown message again.
“Search the number,” Noah said.
She did not want him to be right a third time. She searched anyway.
The number appeared on the website of a small public relations consulting firm. The owner’s name was Leah Brennan.
Emily sat very still.
Noah’s excitement faded. “That’s her?”
“Maybe.”
“Call.”
Emily stared at the time: 12:07 a.m.
Then she pressed the number.
Leah answered immediately.
“Emily?”
“Yes.”
“Are you alone?”
“No. My brother and a neighbor are here.”
“Good.”
Leah’s voice was controlled and low. She sounded younger than Emily expected from the lawsuit article, though perhaps fear made everyone sound younger.
“You said Victoria has done this before,” Emily said.
“Not exactly this.”
“What did she do?”
A pause.
“She made evidence appear.”
Emily stood and moved toward Mrs. Kim’s living room window. The courtyard below shone black with rain.
“What evidence?”
“Receipts. Emails. A bottle of pills.”
“Whose pills?”
“Mine.”
Noah had followed her. Emily turned away from him.
Leah continued. “Three years ago, I found payments from the foundation to a consulting company that did not exist at its listed address. I told Daniel’s father. Two days later, Victoria said she found prescription stimulants in my desk. They weren’t prescribed to me.”
“What happened?”
“I was fired.”
“Were police called?”
“No. She said she was protecting me from charges if I signed an agreement and resigned.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
The shame in Leah’s voice was quiet and familiar. Emily recognized it from her own habit of apologizing when someone stepped on her foot.
“Why didn’t you tell the police?” Emily asked.
“I had no proof. The pills were in my desk. Victoria said she’d report me. My mother was in hospice, and the health insurance came through my job. Daniel’s father offered severance if I signed.”
“Daniel knew?”
“I don’t know how much he knew. He was working in Chicago then. He came home after his father got sick.”
“You sued Victoria.”
“After my mother died. The case settled before discovery.”
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“Why?”
“Because my attorney said the foundation would bury me in motions, and I needed money. Because Victoria’s attorney found photographs of me drinking at a party when I was twenty-two and threatened to make addiction the story. Because I was tired.”
