Chapter 9 - A Friend Who Changed Her Mind
Denise appeared at my hospital room the next afternoon wearing a scarf too warm for the weather. She was shaken, but she was not missing. Her brother had answered the phone because she was driving through heavy traffic.
"He has a terrible sense of humor," she said when Malcolm explained. "I'm sorry."
I laughed so hard my ribs hurt. Then Denise laid a folded notebook on my blanket.
She had kept it after her dismissal. Each page logged her work. Sloane had asked her to escort children into side rooms for photos while guardians waited outside. She had never seen physical harm, but she saw children coached to use words they didn't understand.
"I thought it was fundraising theater," Denise said. "Then Elsie asked me if she'd done something wrong because she wanted her mom."
The entries also mentioned a cash payment to a private photographer and several bills routed through a consulting company called Northglass Media. Malcolm knew that name. He had seen it on statements from a joint household account, disguised as event-planning expenses.
Andrea told us not to jump from questionable invoices to a crime. Sloane might have wasteful business practices without stealing money. But the photograph, the notebook, and the account records were enough for a formal complaint to the charity board's independent auditor.
"Why did you keep the notebook?" I asked Denise.
"Because she made me feel like I was imagining things," Denise said. "Writing them down let me know I wasn't."
That night, I opened my own new notebook. At the top I wrote MAYA IS NOT A CAMPAIGN. Beneath it I wrote, SHE IS A CHILD.
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Then Malcolm received a text from Sloane's lawyer: Maya was scheduled to appear at the Harbor House gala on Friday, under an agreement allegedly signed by both parents.
The signature beside Malcolm's printed name was not his.
