Chapter 3: The Woman in the Photograph
I opened the message.
My sister Susan stood beside Mark in the photograph, holding a thick brown envelope against her coat.
“Susan?” My hand began to shake.
“Why were you giving my sister money?”
Mark lunged across the table.
“Give me the phone.”
I pulled it against my chest.
Mr.
Harrison rose and stepped between us.
“You will sit down,” he said.
“This is my house.”
“And those are company funds.”
Mark lowered himself into his chair, but his eyes stayed on my phone.
One of his coworkers, Tom Bennett, looked away.
He had laughed earlier when Mark called me a cleaning lady.
“Did you send this?” I asked him.
Tom rubbed his palms against his trousers.
“Yes.”
Mark slammed his hand on the table.
“You’ve just ended your career.”
“No,” Mr.
Harrison said.
“That sounded like a threat, Mark.”
Tom reached into his jacket and removed a small memory card.
“I saw them outside the County Records Office six weeks ago.
Mark had asked me to drive him there because his car was being serviced.”
“You took pictures of me?” Mark demanded.
“My dashboard camera did.
I saved the footage after accounting questioned one of your vendors.”
Mark gave a cold laugh.
“You saved it because you wanted my job.”
Tom’s chair scraped as he stood.
“I saved it because the woman in that photograph looked frightened.”
I enlarged the picture.
Susan’s eyes were lowered, and Mark’s hand was wrapped around her elbow.
“What did you make her do?”
“Nothing.
She needed money.”
“For what?”
“Ask your perfect sister.”
I pressed Susan’s number.
She answered after the fourth ring.
“Linda?”
“Were you with Mark at the County Records Office?”
Silence filled the line.
“Susan, answer me.”
Mark leaned back and folded his arms.
“She won’t.”
Susan’s breath broke through the speaker.
“I’m sorry, Linda.”
The room seemed to tilt beneath me.
Mr.
Harrison took the phone from my shaking hand and placed it on the table with the speaker on.
“What are you sorry for?” I asked.
“Mark said you were starting a business.
He said you were too embarrassed to tell anyone until it became successful.”
“I never started a business.”
“I know that now.”
Mark pointed toward the phone.
“She knew exactly what she was signing.”
Susan began to cry.
“You told me they were witness forms.”
“And you accepted five thousand dollars.”
My fingers closed around the edge of the table.
“You paid my sister?”
“She was behind on her mortgage,” Mark said.
“Unlike you, I tried to help her.”
Susan’s voice sharpened.
“You said Linda knew.”
Mark smiled at me as if Susan had proved his point.
“She was happy enough to take the envelope.”
I stared at the photograph again.
“What was in those forms?”
Susan drew a ragged breath.
“One created the company.
Another said I had witnessed your signature.”
Mr.
Harrison turned toward Mark.
“You used your wife’s identity and paid her sister to validate it?”
“That isn’t what happened.”
“Then explain what happened.”
Mark stood and collected his coat.
“My attorney will explain it on Monday.”
Mr.
Harrison blocked the doorway.
“You’re suspended effective immediately.
Your company access ends tonight.”
“You cannot suspend me in my own home.”
“I just did.”
Mark looked at each coworker before stopping at Tom.
“You think that memory card protects you?
It makes you part of this.”
Tom’s face lost its color.
Mark walked toward the stairs, but Susan called my name again.
“Linda, there’s something else.”
I picked up the phone.
“What?”
“Mark made me sign a second set of papers yesterday.”
Mark stopped halfway up the stairs.
I watched his fingers tighten around the railing.
“What papers, Susan?”
May you like
Her answer was almost a whisper.
“The ones that put your house up as security.”
