Chapter 8 - What Elaine Signed
Elaine returned home pale and exhausted, carrying a list of medical appointments. She asked for Nora before she'd taken off her coat.
“Please sit,” Nora said. “The doctor wants you to rest.”
“I know what the doctor said. I need you to hear what I didn't say eighteen years ago.”
In Elaine's bedroom, the blinds threw stripes across a blue velvet jewelry box. She opened it to reveal an old mailing receipt addressed to herself.
“Your mother sent me her reports. I received them. I was trying to convince Richard to see her.”
“And?”
“Graham said the board would sue June for defamation. He brought a release for me to sign. He said if I signed, the company would stop pursuing her.”
“Did you read it?”
“Not carefully enough.”
Nora felt the first sting of anger turn hard and clean. “You signed away her chance to defend herself.”
Elaine looked at her hands. “Yes.”
“Then she spent years telling me honesty mattered. She believed somebody in this house would help her.”
“I failed her.”
Nora stood. “I'm not going to make you feel better about that.”
“I wouldn't ask you to.”
Elaine handed over a second envelope. It contained a handwritten list of people who had worked on Emberwood's service contract.
“One of them copied the original repair orders,” Elaine said. “I never found out where he went.”
“Why tell me now?”
“Because Graham asked me to sign a new statement last week, saying those records never existed. When I refused, he said he could make the old scandal my fault.”
May you like
Nora examined the list. One name was circled three times: Tomas Reyes.
She knew Tomas. He was the guard who had looked at the floor while Madison raised her hand.
