Chapter 12
The account appeared on Elena's phone while we were waiting for the school pickup line to move.
She read it without blinking. I watched the color leave her face, not all at once, but in a thin line beneath her eyes.
“What does it say?” I asked.
She turned the phone toward me, though most of the words were too long for me to understand. I recognized her name. I recognized “disgruntled former employee.” I recognized “performance concerns” and “unsubstantiated allegations.”
“They're saying I was angry because I lost my job,” she said.
“Were you?”
Elena looked at me through the rearview mirror. Her mouth moved like she wanted to smile, but it didn't quite happen.
“I was angry because they lied about why I lost it.”
The car behind us honked. Elena pulled forward, collected my backpack, and held my hand across the parking lot. She didn't hide the phone. That was different from before.
At home, Marco called. He spoke with Elena near the kitchen window while I sat at the table and drew a rabbit with one ear bigger than the other.
“They want a recorded statement,” Elena said after hanging up. “The investigators already have the documents, but the representatives are trying to make me look unreliable.”
“Do you have to tell them everything?” I asked.
“No.” She lowered herself into the chair beside me. “I have to tell them what happened at work. I don't have to give them every private thing that ever frightened me.”
Dominic arrived later, but he stayed near the apartment door instead of walking farther inside. He wore his dark suit, and the room seemed smaller when he was in it. Marco stood behind him, quiet and watchful.
Dominic placed a thin folder on the counter. “These are the dates, payment records, and access logs. Nothing else.”
Elena didn't touch it.
“If you want,” he continued, “we can go through the order of events. I won't write your statement. I won't attend the recording unless you ask me to.”
Elena studied him. “And if I say something that makes the company look bad?”
“Then it should be said accurately.”
She looked down at her hands. “They may ask why I didn't report it sooner.”
“You can answer that truthfully,” Dominic said. “You don't owe them a performance of courage.”
The next afternoon, Elena took me to a private dressing suite connected to a large event space. I had only seen it from the hallway before. There were bright bulbs around a mirror, racks of pressed clothes, and a small table where someone had placed bottled water and a plate of untouched sandwiches.
A camera waited on a tripod.
A woman representing the executive sat beside it with a legal pad. She had a smooth voice and a smile that never reached her eyes.
“We're simply hoping to understand Ms. Carter's state of mind,” she said.
Elena sat in front of the camera. Her coat stayed on. She kept both feet flat on the floor.
“I was employed by Moretti Group,” she began. “On the day I received the termination letter, the letter carried company letterhead and an authorization signature that Dominic Moretti did not make.”
The woman interrupted gently. “Would you describe yourself as dissatisfied with your position?”
“I was concerned about records connected to payments,” Elena said. “I raised questions. After that, access to certain files changed. Then I received the termination letter.”
“Were you under financial pressure at the time?”
Elena's fingers tightened once around the edge of the chair.
“Yes,” she said. “I was supporting my daughter and trying to keep our housing. That made me cautious. It did not make the records false.”
The room went very still.
She didn't mention every late notice, every night she had counted coins, or how fear had followed us home. She gave dates. She named files. She explained which choices she had made and why she had kept copies.
When the recording ended, Elena stood slowly. She looked exhausted, but her shoulders were level.
Outside the suite, Dominic waited in the hallway.
“How did it go?” he asked.
“It went on the record,” Elena said.
His eyes moved to her face, then to me. “Do you want me to come with you?”
Elena shook her head. “Not tonight. I need the evening for myself and Lily.”
Dominic accepted that without arguing. He nodded once and walked away with Marco.
In the car, Elena rested her hand over mine at the stoplight.
“They can call me disgruntled,” she said. “They can't make me say something I don't mean.”
May you like
I looked at the dark window and held her fingers.
The story about us was still moving through offices and phones. But Elena had chosen which parts of herself belonged in it.
