Chapter 12 - The Cost of Telling the Truth

Talia met me outside a laundromat in the rain. Her father, Luis, waited inside, folding the work shirts he no longer needed for Whitcomb House. He was sixty-one and had spent eleven years cleaning the guest rooms. The termination letter cited a scheduling reorganization. He'd been removed from the roster only hours after Talia refused to surrender her phone.

"I asked her to film nothing," Luis told me when I came in. "I told her rich people can make a whole lot of trouble."

"You weren't wrong," I said.

He looked surprised. I told him I had no right to make his family pay for mine. I offered to connect him with an employment lawyer, and to cover a consultation if he wanted it. He said he would think about it. Talia stood beside him, angry tears bright in her eyes.

"I took the video because everyone was watching you hurt," she told me, "and nobody wanted to say what happened."

There wasn't anything I could give her that was worth that kind of courage. All I could do was tell the truth myself.

Back at the hotel, an orthopedic specialist reviewed my scans. The old ligament repair was still intact, but a new injury would require weeks of restricted weight-bearing and physical therapy. I had a bad moment looking at my crutches beside the exam table. I remembered the flood response six years earlier, when a truck had hit the vehicle carrying our supplies. I remembered learning to walk without believing I would ever run again.

"Recovery won't be simple," the doctor said. "But this isn't the end of the work you've done."

Outside, Nia was waiting with news that a local gossip account had posted a clip of my fall with the caption DRUNK BRIDESMAID DEMANDS ATTENTION. It had been edited to begin after Sloane's shove.

My company name appeared in the comments. So did accusations that I'd spent disaster funds on a family wedding.

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I looked at the screen, then at my knee brace. "They've made the theft look like mine."

Nia nodded. "And our biggest client just asked for an emergency meeting."