Chapter 7 - The Report Nobody Wanted
I gave my statement to a detective named Alvarez from a hospital room that smelled of disinfectant and overcooked coffee. She listened without interrupting while I described the staircase.
When I reached the part about Sloan's laugh, my throat closed.
“Take your time,” Alvarez said. “Tell me what you saw, not what you wish you had seen.”
I showed her the full recording, the edited one, my mother's texts, and the medical findings. Nora handed over Josie's contact information with her permission.
Alvarez explained that an investigation wasn't a verdict. Other witnesses would be interviewed, and whether criminal charges were appropriate would depend on the evidence and the prosecutor.
That was fine with me. I didn't need promises. I needed somebody to stop calling a deliberate shove an accident.
Separately, I notified my employer's compliance director about the corporate-card charge. He thanked me for freezing the account quickly, but company procedure required temporarily restricting my expense privileges during review.
“I understand,” I told him. I did. I spent my career investigating losses. Rules should still apply when the person reporting trouble is me.
Yet hanging up hurt. Sloan had injured my body, and now Dad had put my reputation at risk too.
That evening, a nurse helped me wash my face. I hated needing assistance. I hated the wheelchair waiting by my bed even more.
Greer sat down and handed me a folder with copies of everything we'd saved.
“You know what professionals do after something goes wrong?” she asked.
“Document it.”
“And then?”
“Figure out how to move forward.”
She smiled. “Exactly.”
My phone lit up with a new email from Sloan's wedding planner. The subject line was “URGENT — Your Family Has Requested a Statement.”
May you like
Attached was a document that declared I had fallen accidentally, authorized the venue charge, and wanted no further investigation.
At the bottom was a blank line for my signature.
