Chapter 4 - The Woman in Emerald Green
I called my mother before we left the parking lot.
"Who is Gabriel Ward?" I asked.
"A man who wants to destroy your father."
"That's not an answer."
"Come home, Sophie. Alone."
"Did you move money out of Grandma's trust?"
A pause. Then, "You're reading things you don't understand."
"I'm reading your initials."
"Come home. Please."
It was the please that unsettled me. My mother used that word only when control had slipped out of her hands.
Gabriel looked toward the waterfront. "You shouldn't have to trust me blindly. I'll show you my credentials, and you can call my former clients. But the drive stays unopened until we make a verified copy and establish a chain of custody."
"How did my mother know you were with me?"
"I assume Richard told her."
"How did she know about the drive?"
He didn't have an answer.
I stayed that night in the spare room of my friend Talia's apartment. She was a city housing inspector who had helped me study flood damage in Eastbank. She didn't ask why I was shaking. She gave me dry clothes and put a mug in my hands.
"Your dad's statement is online," she said. "He's saying you're under 'family care' while auditors review financial irregularities."
"Family care?"
"It's a fancy way of calling you unstable."
I read the post. It used my name, my photograph, and a sentence about my 'recent personal challenges.' The comments were already filling with rumors. My phone showed missed calls from classmates I'd barely spoken to since graduation.
"I can lose my license application over this," I said.
"Not from a rumor alone. Save everything."
By dawn, Gabriel had sent copies of his professional registration, prior court testimony, and a letter bearing Grandma's signature. He'd also sent something unexpected: an email from her to him, written the month before she died.
My son has begun telling Sophie that her ideas are childish. He wants to make her ashamed enough to surrender them. If he succeeds, he will take more than her work.
I stared at the words until Talia touched my shoulder.
"You need breakfast," she said.
"I need to know what happened May seventeenth."
Talia went still. "Sophie. That was the day the first Eastbank shelter closed."
The closure had sent thirty-two families back to flood-damaged homes. We'd been told the city ran out of temporary funding. One elderly resident had died in a house without working heat two weeks later.
Talia opened a folder from her work bag. "I wasn't supposed to have this yet. The city released it through a public-records request yesterday. The shelter didn't close because funding ran out. It closed after someone withdrew the pledged private match."
May you like
She showed me the signer.
Vivian Mercer.
