Chapter 8 - The Woman With the Blue Folder|
Ruth arrived at Nora's office wearing a raincoat with one missing button.
The blue folder was tucked beneath her arm.
She held it so tightly that the cardboard had bent.
Teresa stood to greet her.
Ruth shook her head before either of us could speak.
“I should have come sooner.”
“Sit down,” Teresa said.
“Tell us what happened.”
Inside the folder were repair estimates, copies of unanswered complaints, and messages Ruth had printed when Victor instructed her to clear an office cabinet.
Some estimates had been rejected as too expensive.
The foundation's accounts later showed payments for those same repairs at nearly twice the quoted price.
June's furnace appeared on the third page.
I recognized her address before I reached her name.
“Nobody went there,” I said.
Ruth nodded.
“She called three times.”
Teresa closed her eyes.
“Why didn't those complaints reach me?”
“Victor said all problems should go through him during the transition.”
Ruth touched the folder.
“When I questioned it, he said you had approved the arrangement.”
It was the same sentence in a different room.
Someone had borrowed Teresa's authority to make another woman doubt herself.
Nora arranged for the originals to reach investigators and kept copies for the foundation's review.
She warned us that proving where the money went would require more than a collection of suspicious invoices.
But these documents gave investigators people to interview and payments to trace.
Ruth stayed until every page had been listed.
Teresa stayed beside her.
Two days later, Leah called me at the house.
Vanessa wanted to meet.
The request had come through her lawyer, with a suggestion that we could clear up some misunderstandings.
“You can decline,” Leah told me.
I thought of Hannah checking her school email every twenty minutes.
“Will you come with me?”
We met in a café near Leah's office that afternoon.
Vanessa sat by the window in a cream coat.
She glanced at Leah, then at the empty chair beside me.
“I hoped we could talk privately.”
“We can talk here,” I said.
For a while, she discussed the weather and the damage publicity had done to everyone.
Then she slid a folded sheet across the table.
It was a proposed statement saying I had misunderstood Teresa's wishes and repeated accusations without knowing the facts.
My name was typed at the bottom.
“The story about your sister could go away,” Vanessa said.
Leah put a hand beside the paper.
“How?”
Vanessa's smile thinned.
“People would understand that everyone made mistakes.”
“And Emily would receive money?” Leah asked.
“Compensation for the trouble.”
I stared at the blank space above my printed name.
All those months of extra shifts.
All those grocery lists with things crossed out.
I understood exactly how much relief money could buy.
That was why her offer hurt.
“Teresa didn't ask to stand through dinner,” I said.
Vanessa leaned closer.
“You think Luca will choose you when this is finished?”
My face grew hot.
“He isn't the question on that paper.”
For the first time, she had no immediate answer.
I pushed the statement back.
Leah ended the meeting and made a written record afterward while I described the conversation again.
She would handle any further contact.
Outside, I sat on a wet bench and cried before I could stop myself.
Leah waited without calling me brave.
That evening, Nora told us that company records identified Vanessa and Victor as the people behind Bellini Outreach.
The bank's preserved instructions also contradicted their claim that Teresa had directed its payments.
Investigators were following the records now.
May you like
Vanessa could offer to change a headline.
She could not persuade the workers who never entered June's house to remember repairing her furnace.
