Chương 9
“How bad?”
“We’re notifying donors.”
“That seems right.”
“Two people may resign.”
“Because of the disclosure?”
“Because they think I’m emotional.”
Nathan considered his answer carefully.
“You are emotional.”
She stared at him.
He continued.
“You’re also right.”
She threw a pillow at him.
He caught it.
“That was a terrible opening.”
“I recovered.”
“Barely.”
A week after the collapse, Vanessa was arrested.
Nathan learned through Morales, not the news.
Charges included offenses related to the financial scheme and evidence tampering. The medication investigation remained active, with more serious charges dependent on additional evidence.
Nathan expected relief.
Instead he felt nauseated.
Sophie sat beside him at the hotel dining table.
“Is she in jail?”
“For now.”
“Does she have a lawyer?”
“Yes.”
“A good one?”
“Probably.”
“Good.”
Nathan frowned.
“You want her to have a good lawyer?”
“I want whatever happens next to be real.”
He looked at her.
She shrugged.
“If the case only works because she has a bad lawyer, what would that prove?”
Nathan thought of Morales.
“You two are spending too much time together.”
Sophie almost smiled.
The arrest became public by afternoon.
Not because Nathan released anything.
A reporter obtained court information and called the foundation.
Within hours, Sophie’s name appeared online.
The headlines were ugly in the efficient way headlines often were.
SOCIALITE’S CLOSE FRIEND ACCUSED IN CHARITY FRAUD.
FOUNDATION ADVISER ARRESTED AFTER MEDICAL EMERGENCY AT BILLIONAIRE PENTHOUSE.
One site published an old photograph of Sophie leaving a hospital after the accidental medication incident in Boston.
Nathan stared at the image.
Someone had sold it months earlier.
Now it was being used to imply a history.
Sophie saw it over his shoulder.
“Oh.”
Nathan closed the browser.
She opened it again.
“Don’t.”
“I want to see.”
“You don’t need to.”
“That sentence has never stopped anyone.”
She read silently.
One paragraph cited an unnamed source claiming Sophie had “previous health concerns related to medication.”
Nathan felt heat move up his neck.
“I’ll call legal.”
“No.”
“They’re implying—”
“I know what they’re implying.”
“It’s defamatory.”
“Maybe.”
“It is.”
“Don’t make this bigger.”
“It’s already bigger.”
Sophie turned toward him.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Nathan stopped.
She put the phone down.
“If you threaten every outlet, they’ll write about the threats. If you send lawyers after random people online, then I become the rich woman trying to erase a story.”
“They’re lying about you.”
“Some are.”
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Yes.”
“Then let me do something.”
Her expression changed.
There it was again.
His need to act.
Her need not to become an object inside his action.
“Nathan,” she said, “I need to survive this without you building a wall so high around me that I can’t see anybody.”
He looked away.
On the hotel television, someone was selling a vacuum cleaner.
The volume was muted.
He watched the presenter glide it across a spotless floor.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Sit here.”
“That’s all?”
“For five minutes.”
He sat.
Five minutes became twenty.
Sophie read the article again.
Then she closed the phone herself.
Three days later she returned to the foundation office.
Nathan drove her.
She did not ask him to.
He did not ask whether she wanted him to.
They simply ended up in the same elevator garage at the same time, both pretending coincidence.
On the ride downtown, Sophie watched people cross at a light.
A man in running clothes was trying to hold a coffee and control a small dog that had become obsessed with a pigeon.
Sophie smiled.
Nathan glanced toward her.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He followed her gaze.
The dog lunged.
Coffee spilled.
The man shouted something they could not hear through the glass.
Nathan said, “Excellent start to his day.”
“Better than ours last week.”
“Low bar.”
At the foundation, staff members did not know how to greet Sophie.
Some hugged her.
One employee began crying, which made Sophie visibly uncomfortable.
Another said, “You look amazing,” then immediately looked horrified at herself.
Sophie said, “It’s fine, Kelly.”
“It sounded worse out loud.”
“It usually does.”
Maya met her near the conference room.
For a second both women stood there.
Then Maya said, “I should’ve caught it.”
Sophie put down her bag.
“No.”
“I approved some of those payments.”
“So did I.”
“You trusted her.”
“So did you.”
Maya shook her head.
“I’m the finance director.”
“And I’m the executive director.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“It wasn’t intended to.”
They stared at each other.
Then Sophie opened her arms.
Maya hugged her.
Nathan watched from twenty feet away and understood something he had been slow to learn.
Responsibility shared did not become smaller.
It became survivable.
He left before Sophie could tell him to.
The audit eventually placed the misused funds at just over eight hundred thousand dollars.
Not all of it had gone to Dennis Reed’s care.
Some paid Marcus’s debts.
Some covered Vanessa’s own credit cards after she began falling behind.
There were restaurant charges.
Travel.
A designer handbag.
Nothing made Sophie angrier than the handbag.
Nathan found her one evening sitting on the hotel floor with the audit pages around her.
“Why is that the thing?” he asked.
She pointed.
“Four thousand eight hundred dollars.”
“I can read it.”
“Her father’s care I can understand.”
“You shouldn’t have to understand any of it.”
“I know. But I can. Marcus’s debt, I can understand. Still wrong, but I can follow the stupid logic.”
She tapped the page.
“This?”
“A handbag.”
“She owns twenty handbags.”
“Probably.”
“She could’ve sold one.”
Nathan leaned against the table.
“People don’t commit fraud according to a moral budget.”
“She bought it two days after my birthday.”
He said nothing.
Sophie laughed once, without humor.
“She gave me a scarf.”
Nathan sat beside her.
“What kind?”
“Ugly.”
“That helps.”
“It does, actually.”
The deeper medication evidence arrived almost three weeks after the collapse.
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Police recovered encrypted cloud data associated with Vanessa’s reset phone.
Among deleted search history were queries about Sophie’s medication, including images of different tablet strengths and general information about sedative effects.
