Chapter 3 - THE CALL FROM FALLON
Fallon called before we reached the parking garage.
I knew it was her because her photograph flashed on Wade's phone as he stormed past us.
He answered, and her voice carried across the concrete.
“Did your mother really bring that old man into your office?”
Wade saw me listening and lowered the phone.
“Not now.”
But Fallon's voice became louder.
“Fix it before Peterson hears what you did with the bids.”
My son stopped walking.
Robert stopped too.
For one breath, no one moved.
Wade ended the call without saying goodbye.
I had never seen him look so pale.
“Did she say bids?” I asked.
He slipped the phone into his pocket.
“She doesn't know what she's talking about.”
It was the sentence people used when the truth had already escaped.
At home, Robert made tea and told me he would not touch the investigation himself.
His role as founding director gave him influence, but he had asked the independent committee to handle it.
“I refuse to make justice look like revenge,” he said.
I wanted to thank him.
Instead, I asked about the money.
“How rich are you, Robert?”
He looked almost ashamed.
“Rich enough that I should have told you more.”
“Did you hide it because you thought I'd want it?”
“No,” he said softly.
“I hid it because I wanted to know whether you could love the ordinary man beneath it.”
“And now?”
“Now I know you deserve the truth about all of me.”
He told me about the company he and two friends had founded forty years earlier.
He explained how it had grown through acquisitions and how Charles had become an operating executive.
Then he admitted something that troubled me.
“Your son works in one of the divisions that has been under review for months.”
“Were you investigating Wade before I came home crying?”
“Not Wade by name,” Robert answered.
“The division. Procurement irregularities. Conflicts of interest. Missing documentation.”
I set down my cup.
“And you didn't tell me?”
“The inquiry was confidential. I didn't know he was involved.”
I believed him, yet a crack of unease opened inside me.
We had both been keeping quiet to protect people.
The difference was that his silence had legal consequences.
Mine had broken my heart.
At six that evening, a courier arrived with an envelope addressed to me.
Inside was a single photograph.
It showed me kneeling beside Fallon's toilet, taken from somewhere above the bathroom mirror.
Across the back, someone had written: KEEP YOUR HUSBAND OUT OF OUR BUSINESS.
I felt the room turn cold.
May you like
Someone had been watching me.
