Chapter 10 - The woman who called during recess
During the next recess, Arthur’s phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
Then looked at me.
“There’s someone asking to speak with you.”
“Who?”
“Rebecca Sloan.”
I knew the name.
Rebecca’s husband had served on Vance Meridian’s board.
He resigned suddenly four years earlier.
Richard told everyone Rebecca had experienced a “mental breakdown” and her husband left the company to care for her.
I took the phone.
“Rebecca?”
Silence.
Then:
“Evelyn?”
Her voice shook.
“I saw the scars.”
I closed my eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“No. Listen to me.”
She began crying.
“You’re not crazy.”
Four words.
Words I had needed years earlier.
Then Rebecca told me her story.
She had questioned irregular company payments.
Soon afterward, private medical information began circulating among people close to her husband.
Anonymous emails portrayed her as unstable.
Her marriage nearly collapsed.
Her husband resigned rather than fight Richard.
They moved to Arizona.
“Do you have evidence?” Arthur asked.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Emails.”
Then Rebecca said:
“And a photograph of the Red Folder cabinet.”
Richard had maintained physical copies.
Not only digital files.
Arthur asked where.
Rebecca gave him an address.
Not the mansion.
A Vance Meridian records facility outside the city.
The judge was informed through counsel of potentially relevant evidence, and appropriate preservation steps were pursued.
Richard stared at me from across the room.
There was hatred in his eyes now.
Not arrogance.
Hatred.
“You destroyed everything,” he whispered.
I almost laughed.
“No, Richard.”
I looked at the fake psychiatric reports.
The stolen necklace.
The financial transfers.
“You did.”
Then Chloe spoke.
“There’s another person.”
Richard spun toward her.
“Stop talking.”
She ignored him.
“Dr. Simon Hale.”
Arthur frowned.
“Who is that?”
“The doctor Richard actually used.”
My skin went cold.
Chloe continued.
“He wasn’t writing every report.”
“Then what was he doing?”
She looked at me.
“Advising Richard on how to make you look unstable.”
Richard shouted:
“LIAR!”
But Chloe was no longer protecting him.
And when Arthur searched the exhibits already produced in discovery, he found the name.
Simon Hale.
Not listed as a psychiatrist.
Listed as a consultant paid by a Vance Meridian subsidiary.
May you like
Monthly.
For almost four years.
