Chapter 6 - The Employee Who Said No
I drove to Blackwood Restoration too fast and still arrived after Adrian.
The company occupied a converted printing warehouse on the North Side, all exposed brick and expensive reclaimed wood. I had helped choose the light fixtures. I had negotiated the lease. I had spent three Christmas Eves there finishing proposals while Adrian told everyone I was "just helping out."
The front door was locked.
At ten in the morning.
I knocked.
The receptionist, Jada, appeared behind the glass.
Her face tightened when she saw me.
She opened the door three inches.
"Evelyn."
"I need to see Mara."
"Adrian said you're not allowed inside."
The sentence hurt in a ridiculous place.
Not because I needed permission.
Because I had a key on my key ring.
I had forgotten that until then.
I held it up.
"Apparently I used to be."
Jada looked miserable.
"Please don't make me choose."
I lowered the key.
"I'm not asking you to. Is Mara okay?"
Before she answered, the inner door opened.
Mara Collins came out carrying a cardboard box.
She was fifty-two, wore bright reading glasses on a chain, and had once brought soup to my apartment when I had the flu.
Adrian followed her.
"This is private," he said when he saw me.
Mara laughed.
"No, Adrian. Private was yesterday when you asked me to lie. This is public because you fired me."
Jada backed away from the door.
I stepped aside as Mara came out.
Her box contained a plant, two framed photos, a ceramic mug shaped like a raccoon, and twelve years of being treated as replaceable in less than ten pounds.
"What happened?" I asked.
Mara looked at Adrian.
"He asked whether I remembered witnessing you sign a guaranty yesterday afternoon."
"I was in Chicago yesterday afternoon."
"I told him that."
Adrian folded his arms.
"I asked a routine question."
"You asked it three times," Mara said. "Then you asked whether I was sure you hadn't brought Evelyn in through the back entrance."
I looked at him.
"You tried to create a witness."
"I was trying to reconstruct what happened."
Mara snorted.
"Honey, I've done payroll for men who lied to their wives and men who lied to the IRS. The second group is usually calmer."
Despite everything, I almost laughed.
Adrian's face hardened.
"You were terminated for disclosing confidential lender information."
Mara lifted the raccoon mug.
"Put it in my file."
Then she walked toward the parking lot.
I followed her.
"Mara, wait."
She stopped beside a dented Subaru.
"I can't be your witness," she said before I could ask.
"I wasn't going to ask that."
"Good. Because my husband starts chemo Monday and I need health insurance. I need a new job, not a crusade."
I nodded.
The fact that she had a life beyond my disaster felt important.
"Then let me say I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"For the fact that you got fired because I called Nate."
She looked at me for a long moment.
"You didn't fire me."
"No. But-"
"Don't do that thing women do where we turn somebody else's bad decision into our moral responsibility."
I swallowed.
"Okay."
She opened her car door.
"Also, your signature?"
I looked up.
"What about it?"
"It wasn't Adrian."
My body went still.
"How do you know?"
"Because I saw who put the papers in the overnight envelope."
"Who?"
Mara's eyes moved past me toward the building.
I turned.
Nate stood behind the glass.
He wasn't looking at us.
He was looking at the floor.
Mara said quietly, "Ask him."
Then she got into her car and drove away.
I went back to the door.
Jada let me in without speaking.
Adrian had disappeared upstairs.
Nate stood near the conference room, hands in his pockets.
"Tell me she misunderstood," I said.
He closed his eyes.
"I signed your name."
The warehouse seemed suddenly too bright.
"Why?"
"Because Adrian told me you had authorized it and the lender needed wet ink by five."
"You know my signature."
"I have a scan from the insurance renewals."
"So you copied it."
"Yes."
"Without calling me."
His face crumpled.
"I called. Your phone went straight to voicemail."
I remembered turning it off during the client meeting in Chicago.
"So you forged it."
"I told myself it was administrative. That we'd replace it Monday."
I laughed once, and it sounded awful.
"Everybody told themselves something."
Nate nodded.
"I know."
"Why are you telling me now?"
"Because Mara got fired for refusing to help me hide it."
He looked toward Adrian's office.
"And because Adrian just asked me to destroy the scan log."
That was the moment the story changed.
Not because I had found another secret.
May you like
Because somebody who had helped Adrian finally decided not to help him again.
