Chapter 11 - The Face in the Glass
The photograph was dated eight days before the fire. Lena had mentioned meeting someone from the foundation about the stairwell, but I hadn't known who. Now Beatrice's reflection made a lie out of her claim that she'd never heard a complaint.
I gave the message and original image file to investigators. They traced the picture to a former foundation communications assistant. Her name was Elaine Porter. She agreed to meet Sonia and me in a public library after receiving a letter confirming she could bring her own attorney.
"I took that for the annual report," Elaine said, tapping the screen. "Mrs. Kessler came out of the building angry. She told me to delete any photograph with the blue door in the background. I kept one because Lena looked scared."
"Did you hear what they discussed?" Sonia asked.
"Only the end. Lena said she wouldn't let children sleep behind a locked exit. Beatrice said, 'If you want a room here, learn who's paying for it.'"
That sentence gave me goose bumps. My sister had been grieving the loss of her own apartment, not begging for permission to risk her son's life.
Elaine had something else: a printout of the donor newsletter prepared before the fire. It boasted that all safety improvements at Juniper House were complete. The photographs accompanying it were taken weeks earlier, before anyone could have finished the promised work.
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Outside the library, reporters waited beside a van. Someone had tipped them off. One shoved a microphone toward my face and asked whether I was exploiting Noah's grief for a payout. I refused to answer. Priya pulled our car to the curb.
As we drove away, Sonia's phone rang. A reporter she trusted had just obtained the foundation's internal budget for the year before the fire. The line marked EMERGENCY EXIT REPAIR had been reduced to zero. The entire amount had been moved to a private construction partnership.
