Chapter 14 - The Price of Looking Away
Graham didn't raise his voice. Somehow that made the room listen harder.
"You used my name to sell housing I promised to repair," he told Vanessa.
"I made sure we had enough money to finish the project!" she snapped. "You wanted the headlines without the hard decisions."
"I wanted roofs that didn't leak."
"And I wanted people to stop treating me like your accessory."
There it was: a real wound beneath a cruel excuse. I could understand wanting credit for work. I couldn't understand taking homes from people who had nothing to spare.
Vanessa saw no one coming to her defense and changed tactics. She touched Graham's sleeve. "We can fix this privately. Say the paperwork was rushed. Help me calm everybody down."
Graham looked at her hand, then at the elderly woman whose forged vote sat on the table. "I told myself the first warning was just a rumor. I don't get to do that again."
She let go as if burned.
In the corridor, Priya arrived with June's mother, Ada Mercado, wrapped in a blue raincoat. Ada moved slowly with a cane. June ran toward her and held on so hard they both laughed and cried at once.
"I told you not to come," June said.
"You told me not to come alone. I brought a lawyer."
Priya carried a binder of tenant statements. Eleven people had signed declarations describing what happened at the supposed meeting. None consented to a sale. Two had been out of state; one was in the hospital.
"We're asking the board to halt everything until the city reviews the transaction," Priya told Frances. "We also requested emergency preservation of records."
Colin appeared at the hallway door. He looked less like a finance director than a man watching the floor fall away.
"The board won't see those," he said. "The documents are confidential."
Ada lifted her chin. "They're about my home. You don't get to call my life confidential to keep me quiet."
May you like
Colin looked at Pike across the hall and made a tiny chopping gesture.
The lights in the Ash Room went out.
