Rebecca's Doubt
Chapter 08 - Rebecca's Doubt
Rebecca chose a hotel café near the airport.
Neutral ground, she called it.
Natalie arrived with Sterling waiting in the lobby and an audio recorder visible on the table. Rebecca noticed it immediately.
"Really?"
"Yes."
"You think I'm setting you up?"
"I think both our lawyers will ask what was said."
Rebecca sat and placed her handbag on the chair beside her.
The café served coffee in thick white cups. A television over the bar showed weather maps with the sound muted.
Natalie touched her collarbone.
"Do you consent to being recorded?"
Rebecca rolled her eyes.
"Yes."
"Say it clearly."
"I consent to being recorded."
She looked toward the lobby.
"Is Sterling hiding behind a plant?"
"He's reading a newspaper badly."
That earned a brief laugh.
Then Rebecca's face closed again.
A server poured coffee. Neither woman touched the cream.
Rebecca turned the spoon around and around in her cup.
"I didn't know about the new will."
"I believe you."
"Do you?"
"On that point."
Rebecca looked offended, then tired.
"My mother told me Harold wanted the company kept stable. She said your architecture practice made you a competitor."
"To a real estate company?"
"She said you'd sell off assets to fund your own projects."
Natalie ran her thumb along the cup rim.
"Did you believe her?"
"I wanted to."
The answer was quiet.
Rebecca looked down.
"Harold was kind to me. Not like a father, exactly. He never pretended that. But he paid off my student loans and gave me a job."
"A job doing what?"
Rebecca's mouth tightened.
"Brand development."
"What did you develop?"
"You don't have to humiliate me."
"I'm asking what the company paid for."
Rebecca stared at the muted television.
"At first, event planning. Community outreach. Then my mother said I should form companies for tax reasons."
"How many?"
"Three."
Natalie waited.
"Maybe four."
"Did you invoice Whitfield Properties?"
"My mother handled most of it."
"Did money reach your accounts?"
"Yes."
"Did you know where it came from?"
Rebecca stirred the coffee again, though the sugar had dissolved.
"I suspected something was wrong for over a year."
The spoon stopped.
"I told myself it wasn't my business."
Natalie looked at her.
"It had your name on it."
"I know."
"You spent it."
"I know."
Outside, a shuttle bus hissed to a stop.
Rebecca rubbed both hands over her face.
"She always had an explanation. Harold wanted me secure. The company owed her for years of unpaid work. The accounts were temporary."
"And you accepted that."
"I was thirty and still letting my mother explain my own bank balance."
No defense.
Just fact.
Natalie's anger changed shape. It did not disappear. It became more exact.
"Why contact me now?"
Rebecca looked toward the lobby, where Sterling held the newspaper upside down for several seconds before noticing.
"Because she told me to burn the red folders."
"Where are they?"
"In a storage unit."
"Under whose name?"
"Mine."
Natalie's thumb pressed into the cup edge.
"What's in them?"
"Transfer approvals. Bank printouts. Notes in my mother's handwriting."
"Why keep them?"
"Because I knew."
Rebecca's eyes stayed dry.
"Not all of it. Enough."
The server returned with pastries neither had ordered. Rebecca waited until she left.
"My mother said those folders were insurance."
"Against whom?"
"Everyone."
Natalie leaned back.
"Bring them to Sterling."
"I can't yet."
"Why not?"
"Because if I turn them over, she cuts me off."
"You are thirty years old."
Rebecca flinched.
"You think I don't know how that sounds?"
"Then tell me how it is."
Rebecca wrapped both hands around the coffee cup.
"My apartment belongs to a company she controls. My car is leased through Whitfield Properties. My health insurance, my phone, even the credit card I use for groceries."
Natalie said nothing.
Rebecca continued.
"I kept thinking I'd become independent after the next quarter, the next project, the next bonus. Then there was always a reason not to."
The same architecture.
Not walls. Dependence.
Diane had built Rebecca's life so every exit looked like a fall.
Natalie glanced toward Sterling.
He had lowered the newspaper.
"Do you have somewhere safe to stay?" Natalie asked.
Rebecca gave a sharp laugh.
"You're worried about me?"
"I'm worried about the records."
"Right."
"And you."
Rebecca looked up.
The word unsettled her more than accusation would have.
Natalie slid a business card across the table.
"My office has a vacant furnished apartment above it. It isn't luxurious. The shower takes three minutes to get hot."
"I don't need charity."
"It's not charity. It's an option."
Rebecca did not touch the card.
"Sterling advised me not to meet you."
"My mother's lawyer advised me to call you unstable."
"Do I seem unstable?"
"You counted pen clicks."
"Fair."
They sat quietly.
A plane passed low overhead, rattling the café windows.
Rebecca finally picked up the card.
"I'll bring one folder."
"All of them."
"One."
"Then this meeting ends with nothing."
Rebecca's jaw tightened.
"You really are like Harold."
Natalie felt the old ache beneath her ribs.
"No. I just learned from him."
Rebecca put the card in her handbag.
"Tomorrow night. Seven."
"At Sterling's office."
"No police."
"Sterling decides that."
"I won't come if Detective whoever is waiting."
"Then tell the truth before fear edits it."
Rebecca stared at her.
For the first time, Natalie saw anger that did not belong to Diane.
Good.
Anger could move a person who shame kept seated.
---
After Rebecca left, Sterling joined Natalie.
"You offered her the apartment."
"You heard?"
"The plant wasn't soundproof."
"Was that a mistake?"
"Legally, perhaps. Humanly, no."
They walked toward the parking lot.
The air smelled of jet fuel and wet pavement.
Sterling unlocked his car.
"Do you trust her?"
"Not yet."
"Then why help her?"
Natalie touched her collarbone.
"Because Diane made dependence look like loyalty."
Sterling waited.
"And?"
"I know what it costs when everyone decides a closed door is none of their business."
He nodded.
At seven forty-three that evening, Rebecca sent a photograph.
Four red folders lay open on a storage unit floor.
Beside them sat Harold's missing personal ledger and a stack of account statements bound with a rubber band.
A message appeared beneath the image.
There are more than I remembered.
May you like
Then another.
I think my mother started before Harold got sick.
