Chương 4
Eleanor did not.
She picked up her handbag. “You will regret allowing an angry woman to dismantle your family in front of strangers.”
Julian’s face tightened. “Rebecca did not dismantle it.”
Eleanor looked at him for several seconds.
“No,” she said. “She merely gave you someone else to blame.”
Then she walked out.
Vanessa remained seated.
The door closed behind Eleanor with a soft hydraulic hiss.
No one knew what to do next.
Ivy solved the problem by making a hungry, irritated sound.
Rebecca looked at the clock. She had been in the room nineteen minutes. Her body, still learning the rhythms of motherhood under stress, answered the baby’s cry with an ache beneath her uniform.
“I need privacy,” she said.
Dana nodded immediately. “There is a wellness room on this floor.”
“No.”
The answer came out sharper than Rebecca intended. Everyone looked at her.
She steadied her voice. “I’m leaving.”
Julian stood again. “Please don’t.”
Rebecca adjusted the carrier strap.
He came around the table, then stopped several feet away. The restraint was new. During their marriage, Julian had crossed rooms as though any distance between them was temporary. He would touch her elbow while she was reading, rest a hand at her waist as he passed, take objects from her without asking because he assumed shared life meant shared space.
Now he seemed afraid even to occupy the air near her.
“Give me five minutes,” he said.
“You have attorneys, a board, and a crisis.”
“I have a daughter.”
“You discovered that twenty minutes ago.”
“I know.”
“That doesn’t create rights over this moment.”
His mouth closed.
Rebecca hated the satisfaction she felt. It was small and ugly and entirely human. For three months, every moment had belonged to Ivy’s needs, the Navy’s procedures, medical appointments, legal strategy, and the exhausting work of proving she had not vanished. Now Julian asked for five minutes, and she could deny him.
Ivy fussed again.
Rebecca picked up her cap.
“Captain Hale,” Dana said, “before you leave, I need to confirm whether you will provide copies of the evidence voluntarily or through your attorney.”
“Through counsel.”
“Understood.”
Martin Shaw spoke from the far end of the table. “Captain, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
Rebecca looked at him.
He appeared sincere. He also appeared terrified about the company’s stock price.
She gave a short nod and walked toward the door.
Julian followed.
“Not now,” she said.
“I’m not trying to stop you.”
“You’re following me.”
“I want to know where you’re staying.”
“No.”
“So I can contact you.”
“My lawyer has your counsel’s information.”
“I don’t want to talk through lawyers.”
“That was an option before your office buried my letters.”
His face tightened. “I didn’t know.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that as if it absolves me and condemns me at the same time.”
Rebecca paused at the doorway.
“It does neither.”
The receptionist outside looked down at her desk. The security officer had Eleanor’s company phone sealed in a transparent evidence pouch. Eleanor stood beside the elevator with her handbag over one arm, perfectly composed. Vanessa had not yet emerged.
Rebecca walked past without looking at her.
“Rebecca,” Eleanor said.
Julian stopped behind her.
Rebecca turned.
Eleanor’s gaze settled on Ivy. “You should consider what public litigation will do to that child.”
The old instinct rose in Rebecca—to defend, to explain, to prove she had already considered every consequence. She let it pass.
“You should consider what private power already did.”
The elevator arrived.
Rebecca stepped inside alone.
As the doors closed, she saw Julian standing between his mother and the boardroom, one hand hanging at his side, the other gripping the photograph through the folder.
For the first time in his life, he looked like a man with no one to tell him where to stand.
The wellness room on the thirty-ninth floor was empty, but Rebecca did not use it. She crossed the lobby, ignored the curious glance of a junior employee who recognized Julian’s wife from old charity photographs, and took the service elevator to the parking garage.
Her attorney, Miriam Cho, waited inside a gray sedan near the exit.
Miriam leaned across and opened the passenger door. “How bad?”
Rebecca lowered herself carefully into the seat, protecting the healing incision beneath her uniform. “Worse than expected.”
“Meaning?”
“He didn’t know.”
Miriam’s expression changed.
Rebecca unclipped the carrier with hands that had begun to shake. Ivy’s face had reddened with outrage. Rebecca moved the baby against her chest, covered them with the cream blanket, and fumbled with the hidden buttons of her white shirt.
Miriam looked away toward the concrete wall.
“You’re certain?” she asked.
“He saw the photograph. He looked shocked.”
“People can perform shock.”
“Julian can perform authority. He’s terrible at surprise.”
Ivy latched, and pain flashed through Rebecca hard enough to make her inhale.
Miriam glanced over. “Still sore?”
“Apparently motherhood remains committed to realism.”
A corner of Miriam’s mouth moved. “That was almost a joke.”
“I’m growing.”
They sat in the dim garage while cars passed and fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Rebecca had expected to feel triumphant after confronting Eleanor. Instead she felt emptied out. The boardroom scene replayed in fragments: Julian’s chair striking glass, Vanessa’s lowered eyes, Eleanor’s hand covering the photograph, Ivy’s fingers around Julian’s.
The last image would not leave her.
Miriam checked her phone. “Dana Rusk sent an evidence-preservation acknowledgment. Summit has suspended Eleanor’s board access and Vanessa’s employment credentials pending investigation.”
“That was fast.”
“The lawyers were already afraid.”
“They should be.”
“Your clinic’s counsel also confirmed the breach notification went to federal regulators this morning.”
Rebecca looked down at Ivy’s pale hair. “Can we keep her name out of public filings?”
“We can ask to seal medical details. We cannot guarantee no one connects the case to you.”
“Eleanor will leak first.”
“Probably.”
“Then she’ll call it concern.”
“Definitely.”
May you like
Rebecca closed her eyes.
Miriam waited. She was good at silence. It was one reason Rebecca had chosen her after dismissing two attorneys who spoke about the Prescotts as though the family were a weather system rather than people making decisions.
