Chapter 10
The call ended, but Victor’s voice seemed to stay in the utility corridor with us.
For a moment, no one moved. Ethan stood beside the open cabinet, the duplicate ledger pages tucked inside his coat. Mara held Claire’s recorder so tightly that its edge pressed into her palm.
Then my phone vibrated.
The first alert was from the company board. The second was a news link from a Boston business reporter I’d met that afternoon. Its headline named me before I opened it.
Chicago Developer Accused of Stalking Single Mother in Boston.
I read the first paragraph twice. It claimed I had used company resources to track Mara, intimidate her, and gain access to her young daughter. It called the timing of my arrival “convenient.” It described my visits as a campaign, not the few frightened, halting attempts they had been.
A photograph showed me outside Mara’s apartment building. I didn’t remember seeing anyone take it.
“They’re making me sound like I hunted them,” I said.
Mara’s eyes stayed on the screen. “That’s what he wants people to think.”
The article quoted an unnamed source who claimed I’d ordered employees to investigate Mara’s address. A company vehicle, it said, had been seen near her building. My stomach tightened at the thought of Victor’s driver in the garage, studying her car, while I’d believed I was the only one keeping watch.
Ethan leaned over my shoulder, read the headline, and swore under his breath.
My phone rang. The board chair’s name appeared. I answered and put the call on speaker.
“Preston, we need to contain this,” he said. Behind him, I heard the dry murmur of a conference room. “The board is suspending your access to the Boston project while we review the allegations.”
“Allegations Victor helped manufacture.”
“We don’t know that.”
“You know the article is false.”
“We know it’s public,” he said, with a pause that landed harder than a shout. “Your presence at Sunday’s signing may create a distraction we can’t afford.”
I looked at the ledger pages under Ethan’s coat. “There are safety failures in that project.”
“Then send your concerns through the proper channels.”
“They’re the channels Victor controls.”
Another pause. “Don’t make this more difficult than it already is.”
The call ended before I could answer. For several seconds, the empty corridor seemed to lean in around us.
My phone rang again, this time with a conference partner’s number. He didn’t bother with a greeting.
“If the board can’t get this resolved by Sunday, we may have to postpone the signing,” he said. “Our investors are asking questions. No one wants this deal attached to a public fight.”
“What about the inspection reports?”
“I’m talking about the story people are reading right now.”
He hung up. I stared at my reflection in the black phone screen: tie loosened, face drawn, the kind of man a headline could make frightening before anyone asked what had actually happened.
Mara’s phone buzzed. She read the message, and every trace of color left her face.
“What is it?” I asked.
She turned the screen toward me. A neighbor from her building had sent a photograph. Willa stood on the sidewalk beside the neighbor, one hand wrapped around Button’s worn paw. Across the street, a man aimed his phone at them.
He’s been waiting outside. I brought Willa in.
Mara made a small sound, barely more than a breath.
“That was Mrs. Alvarez,” she said. “She was watching her while I came with you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.” Her gaze snapped up. “Don’t apologize like this is a misunderstanding.”
“I’m not. I’m saying I should have understood how close he was.”
The stranger’s face was blurred in the photograph, but the angle of his phone made my hands clench. I wanted to find him, take the phone, demand to know who’d sent him. The urge came hot and immediate, almost comforting in its simplicity.
Mara was already moving.
“We’re going back.”
The drive to her building took less than ten minutes. It felt much longer. I kept checking the rearview mirror, then hated myself for making her look too. At the curb, a dark sedan sat half a block away. Mara saw it, too, and pulled Willa’s hood up before opening the car door.
A man stood beside the sedan, phone lifted.
Mara stepped between him and Willa.
“Stop taking pictures of my daughter.”
He lowered the phone, but didn’t answer. I got out, one foot on the pavement, ready to cross the distance. Mara turned toward me.
“Preston. No.”
I stopped. It took more effort than it should have.
“If you approach him,” she said, “that becomes the next picture. The next story.”
The man slipped into his car and drove away. I watched the taillights vanish between the buildings, carrying all the things I wanted to say and none of the answers I needed.
Inside, Willa was safe. She reached for Mara at once, her cheek pressed to Mara’s shoulder, Button’s loose ear caught beneath her chin. I stayed by the door until Willa looked up and noticed me.
“Are we going somewhere?” she asked.
Mara smoothed the hood away from her face. “We’re going to pack a few things, sweetheart.”
“Is Button coming?”
“Of course.”
I wanted to tell her I would keep her safe. The promise rose in my throat and stopped there. I had just watched a stranger turn her into a target while my name was being dragged through the city. I couldn’t offer certainty I didn’t possess.
“I can drive you wherever you choose,” I told Mara. “Or I can arrange a car and stay out of the way. You decide.”
Her eyes searched mine as if looking for the catch.
“And if I decide you’re not coming?”
“Then I won’t come.”
The words cost me more than I expected. Not because I was giving something up that belonged to me, but because every instinct in me was screaming that leaving meant losing time I could never get back. Willa was my daughter. That truth didn’t make her trust mine to demand, or Mara’s choices mine to overrule.
Mara nodded once, then carried Willa into the bedroom.
While she helped Willa change, I stepped into the hall and opened the photographs I’d taken of Ethan’s ledger pages at the site. My fingers moved quickly, creating an encrypted file and sending it to Ethan’s private account. The pages in his coat might vanish; the pictures might be challenged. Still, one more copy meant Victor had one more obstacle between him and silence.
Ethan texted back a single line: Received. I’ll preserve the originals.
I slipped my phone away before Mara came out. I didn’t want to add another demand to the night—to ask her to trust a plan when she was trying to get her child out of reach.
She packed in silence. A small bag for Willa. Another for herself. Then she lifted Button from the bed and held him against her chest for one brief second before tucking him carefully into the top of Willa’s backpack.
May you like
When she turned, her eyes were red but steady.
“I’m leaving Boston before dawn,” she said. “With your help or without it.”
