Chapter 13
“No.”
Rebecca blinked.
Mara looked back at her.
“You were threatened through your sick child.”
“I still stayed silent.”
“Yes.”
“Doesn't that make me responsible?”
“It makes you someone who made a choice while another person had his hand around your throat.”
Mara pushed the folder closed.
“The responsibility belongs first to the person squeezing.”
Rebecca began crying.
Mara gave her a napkin.
Then she picked up her phone.
It was time to call her husband.
Nolan arrived twenty-six minutes later.
No security team.
No attorneys.
Just Nolan.
He entered the diner, saw Mara's expression, and immediately knew something was wrong.
“What's happened?”
Mara pointed toward the booth.
“Sit.”
He did.
Rebecca sat opposite him.
Nolan recognized her after several seconds.
“Rebecca Shaw.”
She looked surprised.
“You remember me?”
“You worked in compliance.”
“Acquisition compliance.”
Nolan's eyes moved toward the box.
Then toward Mara.
“What is this?”
Mara slid the labor strategy across the table.
Nolan read the first page.
His face changed.
He turned to the second.
Then the third.
By page five, he looked up.
“Where did you get this?”
“Rebecca.”
Nolan looked at her.
“Is it authentic?”
“Yes.”
“Why wasn't this in the Bellweather archive?”
“Elliot ordered it removed.”
Silence.
Nolan's eyes sharpened.
“Elliot?”
“Yes.”
He looked back at the document.
Mara watched him carefully.
Not because she suspected him.
Because she needed to know what happened next.
Nolan read one paragraph again.
“This was written seven months before closing.”
“Yes.”
“I was told consolidation became necessary afterward.”
Rebecca nodded.
“That was the story Elliot created.”
Nolan's jaw tightened.
“But I approved the closure.”
“Yes.”
“He recommended it.”
“Yes.”
“And I approved it.”
“Yes.”
Mara watched the guilt arrive.
She knew that guilt now.
Nolan had carried it for years.
But something about learning that the disaster had been planned made it heavier.
He looked at Mara.
“I didn't know.”
She held his gaze.
“I believe you.”
Nolan froze.
Three words.
That was all.
But both of them understood what they meant.
Years earlier, Mara had asked Nolan to understand that trust sometimes existed before every piece of evidence did.
Now she was giving him exactly that.
His eyes softened.
“Thank you.”
“Don't thank me yet.”
She tapped the box.
“Because we're going to find out who did know.”
Nolan wanted Pierce North's general counsel involved.
Mara said no.
“Why?”
“Because we don't know who else was part of it.”