Chapter 8 - Five Years of Lies
I stared at the photograph until the edges blurred. My mother stood on the steps of a brick courthouse, younger and healthier. Adrian was beside her, wearing a cheap suit and a hard expression I'd never seen.
On the back, she'd written: April 9. He promised to do the right thing.
“He met Mom before he met me,” I whispered.
Evelyn examined the image. “Maybe for business.”
“Then why lie?”
The letter explained part of it. My mother had uncovered inflated invoices in the foundation's housing program. Adrian, then a junior auditor working for an outside contractor, had flagged the payments. Raymond had pressured him to change his findings. Adrian had refused at first. Later, he'd signed a revised report clearing the vendor accounts.
I remembered Adrian's proposal, the rooftop lights, his promise that he never wanted secrets between us. Suddenly every tender memory had a shadow behind it.
In the box was also a USB drive labeled ORIGINALS. Evelyn had a forensic specialist make a protected copy before opening it. The files showed forged invoices and correspondence tying Raymond to shell companies that Nathan controlled.
The biggest shock was a document marked SETTLEMENT. It proposed paying Adrian half a million dollars for his silence. Beneath it was his signature.
June looked at me. “This happened before you were married.”
“Before he told me he loved me.”
I called Adrian from Evelyn's office on speakerphone.
“Did you take Raymond's money?”
He didn't answer immediately.
“Adrian.”
“Yes.”
The truth was only one syllable, but it hurt worse than any excuse.
“Was marrying me part of the deal?”
“No,” he said urgently. “Emma, no. I met you again by accident at that fundraiser. I fell in love with you. That part was real.”
“Again?”
He exhaled. “Your mother introduced us once. You don't remember.”
I remembered a man who'd helped carry folding chairs after a charity auction. A stranger with kind eyes.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because you wouldn't have given me a chance.”
“You stole my chance to decide.”
Before I could hang up, Adrian said, “The settlement money was never for me. Look up the hospital that treated your mother in May.”
May you like
I pulled the records from the box.
There, among the invoices, was a payment for an experimental treatment my family had been told an anonymous donor funded.
