Chapter 5: What Patricia Knew
Patricia talked for almost an hour.
I sat at the kitchen table and didn't move.
I had a pen in my hand but I stopped writing after the first few minutes — there was too much, and I didn't want to miss any of it by looking down.
Lucas had been up for the promotion for eight months.
There were two candidates: Lucas and a woman named Soren, who had been with the company longer, had stronger numbers, and had — according to Patricia — built half the systems Lucas's department currently ran on.
"He knew he was behind," Patricia said.
"So he started — managing the narrative, he called it.
Feeding information to the right people.
Framing Soren's delays as leadership problems.
Her caution as indecision."
"He undermined her," I said.
"Carefully.
Plausibly.
Always with just enough truth mixed in that it was hard to challenge." Patricia's voice was steady but thin.
"I helped him.
I didn't understand what I was doing at first.
By the time I did, I was already part of it."
"Why did you leave in March?"
A pause.
"Because he did the same thing to me."
I set the pen down.
"He told Diane I'd been mishandling his correspondence.
That I'd missed a critical deadline on a client file.
Neither was true, but he had a paper trail.
He'd been building it for two months before he said a word to me." Her voice didn't waver.
"I was walked out on a Thursday afternoon.
Fifteen years in that building."
"Patricia, I'm sorry."
"I'm not calling for sympathy.
I'm calling because Soren filed a formal complaint in February.
Diane has been quietly investigating since April.
And Richard — I don't know exactly what Richard has, but he was at that dinner for a reason." She paused.
"I don't think Friday was an accident."
I looked at the baby monitor on the counter.
Both lights green.
Both babies still asleep.
"What do you mean?"
"Diane doesn't invite journalists to casual work dinners.
She's too careful for that." Another pause.
"I think she already knew something was wrong with Lucas.
I think Friday was her watching him under pressure.
Seeing who he actually was."
The kitchen felt very still.
"And he showed her," I said.
"He showed everyone."
After we hung up, I sat there for a long time.
Outside, a car passed.
One of the twins stirred on the monitor, resettled, went quiet.
I thought about eight months.
Eight months of Lucas coming home tense, distracted, short-tempered.
Eight months of him talking about this promotion like it was the only thing that mattered.
I had assumed it was ambition.
Normal pressure.
The kind of stress that came with wanting something badly.
I had made excuses for his sharpness.
His distance.
The way he sometimes looked at me across the dinner table like I was a problem he hadn't solved yet.
I picked up Richard's card.
He answered on the second ring.
"I heard from Patricia," I said.
"I thought you might." His voice was careful.
"How much did she tell you?"
"Enough.
I want to understand what you're doing with this."
"Right now, nothing.
I have notes from Friday.
I have context from Diane — nothing on record, nothing she's authorized me to use.
And I have a story I've been working on for three months about workplace culture and how performance reviews get manipulated." A pause.
"Lucas's name came up in my research before Diane ever invited me to that dinner."
My hand tightened on the phone.
"He came up how?"
"A source inside the company.
Someone who watched what happened to Soren and didn't think it was right." Richard paused again.
"I'm not trying to build a case against your husband.
That's not my job.
But if you have information — things you've seen, things you know — and you want to talk, I'll listen.
Off the record, on the record, however you're comfortable."
I thought about the phone Lucas had turned away from me Friday night.
The Sunday he'd spent at the office.
The new suit this morning.
"Can I ask you something first?" I said.
"Of course."
"The meeting Diane has with him this morning.
Do you know what it's about?"
Richard was quiet for a moment.
"I know it's not about the promotion," he said.
Lucas walked back through the door at 4 p.m.
I heard the key in the lock and looked up from the sofa where I'd been feeding Mia.
He came in, set his bag down, and stood in the hallway.
His tie was loosened.
His face was the color of old paper.
"How was your meeting?" I asked.
He looked at me.
"They're putting the promotion on hold," he said.
"Pending a review."
"A review of what?"
He walked past me into the kitchen without answering.
I heard the tap run.
A glass being set down too hard on the counter.
"Lucas." I stood in the kitchen doorway, Mia still in my arms.
"A review of what?"
He turned around.
His eyes were different — something had gone out of them.
"Someone made a complaint," he said.
"About how I handled a colleague.
Months ago.
And apparently—" He stopped.
Pressed his fingers against the counter.
"Apparently they've been looking into it."
I waited.
"Did you know?" he said.
"Did you say something to someone?"
"I met your colleagues for the first time on Friday night, Lucas."
He stared at me.
"Then who—"
His phone buzzed on the counter.
He looked at it.
His face went a shade paler.
"I have to go back in," he said.
May you like
"Tonight?"
But he was already picking up his bag.
