Chapter 14 - THE WITNESS WHO CHANGED SIDES
The police collected the stone and note from Ruth's house.
Ruth was furious, not frightened.
“Someone expects old women to sit quietly while their lives are dismantled,” she said.
“They've picked the wrong old women.”
Her courage shamed me into admitting mine had limits.
For the first time I told Wade he could no longer come to our home without calling first.
He reacted as though I had abandoned him.
“You're choosing Robert over your own child.”
“No,” I answered.
“I'm choosing not to be threatened.”
Two days later Lena asked to meet with investigators again.
She had found old messages that suggested she had unknowingly processed payments routed through a second firm.
The firm had an unfamiliar name, Ashmere Holdings.
Its mailing address led to an office rented by Marianne's investment group.
That discovery changed the inquiry.
It no longer looked like a small vendor scheme driven by Fallon's brother.
There might be outside influence behind the contracts.
Miriam announced a formal suspension of Wade's access to procurement systems pending the review.
He retained his employment status at that stage, but his promotion was indefinitely paused.
The company made clear that no final finding had been reached.
Wade called it a public execution.
Robert told him the suspension was a protective administrative step.
“Everyone keeps saying protective,” Wade snapped.
“Who is protecting me?”
“Your attorney should be,” Robert said.
“Then pay him!”
The demand fell into silence.
I ended the call before I said something I could never take back.
That evening Lena visited, accompanied by her lawyer.
She was pale but determined.
“I need Mrs. Hale to know one thing,” she said.
“Travis told me she would never speak up because she'd always been poor.”
I looked down at my work-scarred hands.
“We weren't poor in the ways that mattered,” I answered.
Lena shook her head.
“He also said Wade kept a folder of your old letters.”
I felt a jolt of hope.
The letters were birthday cards and notes I'd sent him while he was away at college.
He had kept them?
“He used the handwriting to practice your signature,” Lena added.
The hope collapsed.
May you like
Somewhere in my son's house, even my love letters had become tools.
