Vivienne's Panic
Chapter 06 - Vivienne's Panic
By the third day, Vivienne's calls to Daniel had shifted in tone, according to what he relayed to Sophie each evening.
"She's stopped asking about restructuring," he said. "Now she's asking, very casually, whether I've heard from you."
Sophie felt her stomach tighten.
"What did you tell her."
"That I hadn't," Daniel said. "Which was true, technically, at the time she first asked."
Meanwhile, back at Bennett Manufacturing, according to a call Sophie received from an old family friend still working in the front office, Vivienne had grown visibly agitated, questioning staff about Sophie's whereabouts, checking security footage from the estate obsessively.
*Flashback: Sophie, at nineteen, first noticing a strange gap in the company's quarterly reports during a rare moment she'd been allowed to sit in on a meeting. She'd asked Vivienne about it afterward. Vivienne had smiled and said numbers like that always looked confusing to people who weren't trained to read them properly. Sophie had believed her.*
"I should have pushed harder back then," Sophie said quietly, once she'd finished sharing the memory with Daniel. "I noticed something was wrong years ago. I just let her convince me I wasn't smart enough to see it clearly."
"That's not a failure on your part," Daniel said. "That's exactly the kind of manipulation someone who's been managing you your whole life gets very good at."
Later that evening, Sophie's phone—a temporary one Daniel had provided—buzzed with an unfamiliar number.
She hesitated, then answered.
"Sophie? It's Renata. From the accounting office."
Sophie sat up straighter.
Renata Alvarez had worked at Bennett Manufacturing since before Sophie's parents died, one of the few people who'd shown Sophie real warmth during the coldest years of Vivienne's guardianship.
"Renata," Sophie said. "Are you safe? Has Vivienne said anything about me?"
"She's frantic," Renata said. "But that's not why I'm calling. I've been quiet about something for a long time, because I wasn't sure who to trust with it. I think it's time I stopped being quiet."
Sophie put the call on speaker, Daniel leaning in to listen.
"What is it," Sophie asked.
"There are vendor accounts in our system," Renata said, voice lowered like she was worried about being overheard even now. "Ones I've never been able to match to actual deliveries or services, no matter how many times I've flagged them internally. Every time I raised it, your aunt told me it was a special arrangement above my clearance level."
"Do you have documentation," Daniel asked, leaning toward the phone.
"I've kept copies," Renata said. "For years, actually. I didn't know what I'd ever do with them, but something told me not to just let them disappear into her filing system."
Sophie felt something like hope flicker through the fear for the first time since this had all started.
"Would you be willing to share them," she asked. "With an attorney building a case against her?"
There was a long pause on the line.
"I've been scared to say anything for a long time," Renata admitted. "But watching her spiral this week, watching how frantic she's gotten trying to find you—I think whatever she's hiding, it's bigger than either of us realized. I don't want to be the person who stayed quiet and let it keep happening."
"Thank you," Sophie said, meaning it more than the words could fully carry. "This matters. More than you know."
Once the call ended, Daniel sat back, something satisfied settling into his expression.
"That's exactly the kind of corroborating witness Grace needs," he said. "Internal, credible, with actual documentation."
Sophie nodded, though the weight of what Renata had shared was still settling over her.
May you like
*Years of documented evidence, sitting quietly in someone's desk drawer, waiting for someone brave enough to actually use it.*
"Call Grace," Sophie said. "Tonight, if she'll take it. I don't want to wait another day longer than we have to."
