Part 12
“How much is some?”
“Three hundred thousand.”
“The audit identified more than twice that.”
“Not all of it was personal.”
“Some of it was wage-related.”
“He didn’t manage payroll edits.”
“He benefited from artificially low labor costs.”
“So did the company.”
“So did I, indirectly.”
Evan put his hands on the back of a chair.
“You always do that now.”
“Do what?”
“Include yourself in every accusation. Like it proves you’re not enjoying this.”
“I’m not enjoying it.”
“Part of you is.”
The words landed because they contained truth.
There were moments Lena enjoyed. She enjoyed signing the order that removed Diane’s system access. She enjoyed watching vendors address questions to her after years of looking past her toward Evan. She enjoyed the silence that followed when Paul interrupted her in a meeting and Marisol said, “She wasn’t finished.”
The pleasure frightened her, so she disguised it as responsibility.
“Sometimes I like having power,” she said.
Evan’s grip loosened on the chair.
“Thank you,” he said.
“That doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
“I know.”
She looked at the sailboat photograph. The water was too blue, the sky too empty.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“For today?”
“For any of it.”
He pulled out the chair and sat.
“I want my mother to stop talking about you like you’re a criminal. I want my father to admit what he did without acting like an invoice can measure his whole life. I want Grandma alive so I can be angry at her properly. I want to go back to the week before this started.”
“The week your mother was planning the sale?”
He gave her a flat look. “You asked.”
“What do you want that can still happen?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not enough anymore.”
“I know.”
She sat across from him.
“Would you testify that Ruth was competent?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Would you testify that your mother used your signature without permission?”
His eyes moved away.
There it was again. The place where belief began to cost him.
“My lawyer says I should invoke privilege on some communications,” he said.
“That wasn’t my question.”
“She’s my mother.”
“I know.”
“If I say she forged it, there could be consequences beyond this case.”
“Yes.”
“She wasn’t trying to steal from me.”
“She was trying to use you.”
“You think that’s different?”
“I think you should decide.”
He laughed bitterly. “Grandma’s sentence again.”
“What sentence?”
“That I haven’t decided what I believe when believing costs me something.”
“I didn’t say it.”
“You didn’t have to.”
They sat in the quiet room.
Finally Evan said, “If I testify, will you drop any criminal referral?”
Lena felt something inside her close.
“Is that why you came in here?”
“I’m asking.”
“You’re bargaining with testimony.”
“I’m trying to protect my family.”
“I am your family.”
The words came out before she could stop them.
His face changed.
Lena looked down at her hands.
“Or I was,” she said.
“You are.”
“No. You can’t use the present tense only when it helps your argument.”
He stood.
“I don’t know how to do this.”
“Neither do I.”
“You look like you do.”
“That’s because everyone is watching.”
He went to the door, then stopped.
“I’ll testify truthfully,” he said. “No condition.”
After he left, Lena remained in the room until Miriam found her.
“Are you all right?” Miriam asked.
“No.”
“Can you continue?”
“Yes.”
“That wasn’t the same question.”
“I know.”
The mediation ended without settlement.
Two weeks later, Paul came to the company after hours.
He no longer had a keycard, so the night supervisor called Lena. She found him waiting in the loading bay beside a stack of clean floor mats. Without the office, the conference table, or Diane beside him, he looked less imposing.
“I need to show you something,” he said.
Lena did not invite him farther inside.
“What?”
He held up a flash drive.
“Records.”
“Give them to your lawyer.”
“My lawyer says not to.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because Diane doesn’t know I kept them.”
Lena’s pulse quickened.
She took out her phone and called Miriam before touching the drive. Paul looked annoyed, then resigned. They waited under the fluorescent lights while a dryer vent thudded somewhere behind the wall.
Miriam arrived forty minutes later with a forensic technician.
The drive contained email exports, draft sale documents, and scanned invoices Paul had saved over several years. It also contained a spreadsheet tracking personal withdrawals.
“Why did you keep this?” Lena asked.
Paul sat on an overturned plastic crate.
“At first? So I’d know what had to be paid back.”
“And later?”
“So I’d know what could bury me.”
Miriam told him he should have counsel present.
“I know.”
“You may be exposing yourself to civil or criminal liability.”
“I know.”
“Then speak through your attorney.”
Paul looked at Lena.
“Diane told me Ruth was too old to understand how the company worked,” he said. “I let myself believe it because every time Ruth asked a question, I felt nineteen again. Like I had to prove I belonged there.”
Lena said nothing.
He rubbed both hands over his knees.
“My father drank. Ruth hired me because Diane was pregnant and we had nowhere to go. I worked every shift anyone missed. When the boiler burst in ’94, I slept here three nights. When the hospital system threatened to cancel, I drove to their vice president’s house in a snowstorm. You know what Ruth said when I fixed it?”
“No.”
“She said, ‘Good. That’s your job.’”
A laugh escaped him, rough and brief.
“I hated her for that.”
“You stayed.”
“Where else was I going to go?”
The question contained more honesty than any excuse he had offered in meetings.
May you like
Paul looked toward the rows of hanging uniforms.
“After enough years, I started taking things without asking. Small at first. A truck on the weekend. Gas. A bonus before it was approved. Ruth would complain, then let it go. I thought that meant she agreed.”
