Chương 14
Her new attorney sat beside her.
Maya noticed the mark from the slap was gone.
Her own hip bruise had turned yellow at the edges.
For a few seconds nobody spoke.
Then Victoria said, “Your hair looks different.”
Maya stared.
“My hair?”
“It’s down.”
Maya had forgotten to tie it up after work.
“This is what you wanted to discuss?”
“No.”
Victoria looked irritated with herself.
“I didn’t know how to start.”
“Try the part where you stopped writing letters.”
Victoria’s attorney shifted.
Victoria ignored him.
“Grant threatened to shut down the company.”
Maya’s face remained still.
“He couldn’t just shut it down.”
“No. But he could create enough instability that the lenders would take control. He showed me projections. Thousands of layoffs.”
“Were they real?”
“Some were.”
“Some?”
“I learned later he exaggerated the immediate risk.”
Maya leaned back.
“So he scared you.”
“Yes.”
“And you decided employees who already lost money could wait.”
“Yes.”
Victoria’s attorney looked at her.
“Victoria.”
She raised a hand.
“No. She asked.”
Maya studied her.
“Why give the interview?”
Victoria’s gaze dropped to the table.
“Because Grant said your attorneys were preparing to go public.”
“They weren’t.”
“I know that now.”
“He wanted you to discredit me.”
“Yes.”
“And you did.”
“Yes.”
Maya waited for more.
There was none.
No speech.
No justification.
Victoria looked older than she had in the mansion.
Maya realized how much architecture had contributed to her authority.
Here, under fluorescent office lights, Victoria Sterling looked like a tired woman who had made choices she could no longer arrange into a flattering order.
“Why didn’t you give us the letters during discovery?”
“I was ashamed.”
“That’s not a legal reason.”
“No.”
“Did your lawyers know they existed?”
“No.”
“Did Grant’s estate?”
“No.”
“So when your attorneys asked whether you had communications related to my termination—”
“I told myself they meant emails and company records.”
Maya stared.
“That’s absurd.”
“Yes.”
“You’re admitting that now because?”
“Because you own the house.”
Maya laughed sharply.
“That finally made you honest?”
“No.”
Victoria met her eyes.
“It made hiding expensive.”
That answer surprised Maya.
Victoria continued.
“If the inventory process found the safe and the letters came out without explanation, I would look worse.”
“You do look worse.”
“I know.”
“So this is self-protection.”
“Partly.”
Maya almost admired the answer.
Almost.
“What’s the other part?”
Victoria took a breath.
“When you were on the floor, I looked at you and realized I had done exactly what Grant did.”
Maya’s jaw tightened.
“No.”
Victoria paused.
“No?”
“You don’t get to compare shoving me to what he did and make yourself tragic.”
Victoria looked down.
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“Then say what you mean.”
“I decided you were the problem because it was easier than admitting the structure around me was wrong.”
Maya said nothing.
Victoria rubbed one thumb against the edge of her watch.
“Grant did that with the accounting. I did it with you.”
Maya felt the anger, but beneath it something shifted.
Not forgiveness.
Recognition.
“You still think this is about the house,” Maya said.
Victoria looked up.
“Don’t you?”
“No.”
Maya leaned forward.
“I took the house because your estate didn’t have enough cash to satisfy the settlement without selling assets. That’s it.”
“You could have forced a sale.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Maya opened her mouth.
Nothing came.
Victoria watched.
There were answers Maya had given before.
Because the appraisal worked.
Because the tax structure was acceptable.
Because Rachel negotiated operating reserves.
Because a direct transfer avoided months of sale litigation.
All true.
None complete.
Maya looked toward the window.
“My dad visited that house once.”
Victoria’s expression changed.
“When?”
“Nineteen years ago.”
“I don’t remember.”
“I know.”
Maya almost smiled.
“He came home and told my mom the bathroom near the library was bigger than our bedroom.”
Victoria said nothing.
“He thought Grant was incredible. He kept the invitation card.”
Maya’s throat tightened.
“When I was sixteen and Dad got sick, Grant sent flowers. Dad put the card on the refrigerator.”
Victoria looked away.
“I found it after he died.”
Maya continued.
“Years later I found his name in the reserve records. Then I got fired. Then your husband used my father’s loyalty like some kind of personal credential when he wanted me quiet.”
She looked at Victoria.
“When the estate offered the house, I wanted one thing Grant Sterling thought belonged permanently to him to stop belonging to him.”
Victoria absorbed that.
“So it was revenge.”
“Partly.”
The word sat between them.
Maya exhaled.
“And partly I was scared that if we took cash, everyone would call it hush money and decide I had made the whole thing about a payout.”
“They did that anyway.”
“Yes.”
For the first time, Victoria smiled.
Not kindly.
Not cruelly.
Just because the truth was ridiculous.
Maya almost smiled too.
Then Victoria’s expression faded.
“What are you going to do with it?”
“Sell it.”
Victoria’s face tightened.
Maya noticed.
“You don’t want me to.”
“It’s yours.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
Victoria looked toward her attorney.
He remained silent.
“I don’t know,” Victoria said.
Maya waited.
“I hated that house for years.”
That surprised her.
“Why?”
“Because Grant loved what it said about him.”
Victoria rubbed her thumb against the watch again.
“I loved what it said about me.”
Maya said nothing.
“Then he died, and I discovered I didn’t know how to leave it.”
Her laugh was brief.
“Apparently I required a deed.”
Maya looked down.
There was no clean place to put sympathy for someone who had hurt her.
It existed anyway.
That irritated her.
“What happens now?” Maya asked.
Victoria’s attorney finally spoke.
“My client intends to cooperate with the regulatory inquiry regarding the letters and any related knowledge.”
Maya looked at Victoria.
“Because you want immunity?”
“I have been advised not to discuss that.”
“There she is.”
Victoria’s mouth tightened.
“Yes.”
Maya sat back.
May you like
At least that felt familiar.
The county prosecutor resolved the physical incident three weeks later.
