Chapter 7 - THE WOMAN IN THE MIDDLE
Sloane Avery requested a meeting with Rebecca through counsel on Wednesday afternoon. The request surprised everyone. Camila warned that a private conversation could create discovery problems and emotional damage. Rebecca agreed to meet only in a conference room with both lawyers present, on the understanding that nothing would be confidential unless a legal basis for confidentiality actually existed.
Sloane arrived wearing a plain navy dress. She had removed the blonde extensions Rebecca once admired and looked younger without them. Rebecca resented noticing. She wanted the woman across the table to be a symbol of betrayal, not an ordinary person whose hands trembled around a paper cup.
“Thank you for coming,” Sloane said.
“Your attorney said you have information.”
“I do. But first, I need to say I'm sorry.”
Rebecca sat still.
“I knew he was married,” Sloane continued. “I knew you. I watched him dismiss you at company events, and I told myself that meant the marriage was over. It made my choices easier to live with.”
“Were they?”
“No.”
Rebecca glanced at the lawyers. Neither intervened.
“I didn't come here to forgive you,” she said. “I came because four people died and their families were denied money. If you have something that helps clarify what happened, say it.”
Sloane nodded, tears brightening her eyes but not falling.
She explained that Victor had first approached her eighteen months earlier with a proposal for a strategic acquisition. He claimed Bellcrest had an algorithm Crosswell desperately needed. Sloane examined the business and found gaps, but Victor told her the seller would provide favorable financing if the deal closed quickly. He then introduced a success-fee arrangement through a consulting entity she partly owned.
“Why did you hide your interest?” Rebecca asked.
“Because I knew the board would view it as a conflict.”
“Then you knew exactly why it mattered.”
“Yes.”
Sloane paused. “Later I found the Blackwater documents. Victor said they were fake. He said Nathaniel had authorized unsafe software and that the acquisition would protect the company from lawsuits. I believed him because by then I needed the deal to close.”
Rebecca heard the self-indictment in those final words. Sloane did not claim coercion had begun before the conflict. She had made the first dishonest choice voluntarily, then found herself vulnerable to the next one.
“Did Nathaniel know about your financial interest?” Rebecca asked.
“No. He knew about the acquisition. He knew Victor was involved. He didn't know I would be paid separately.”
“Did you ever tell him Victor was threatening you?”
“I told him Victor could ruin us. He thought I meant our relationship.”
Rebecca looked toward the window. The city moved beyond it, indifferent to a room full of people parsing an affair into discrete professional failures.
“Where is the original archive box?” she asked.
Sloane took a breath. “At my attorney's office now. The employee who moved it from Crosswell told me he wanted no part of hiding it. He contacted the audit committee and arranged its return.”
“Why did you ask your colleague to move it in the first place?”
“Victor told me it contained material that had to be reconciled before the auditors saw it. I should have refused. I didn't.”
Rebecca stood when the conversation ended. Sloane rose too.
“I don't expect you to believe my apology,” Sloane said.
“I believe you're sorry now. That doesn't change what happened.”
“I know.”
“And I hope you're telling the investigators everything.”
“I am.”
Rebecca left without shaking her hand. On the street, she leaned against a wall and breathed until the familiar ache behind her ribs subsided. She was beginning to understand that refusing cruelty did not require embracing the people who hurt her.
That afternoon, a technician extracted the old controller logs from the North Strand device. The records showed that the gate command had been entered using Nathaniel's shared maintenance credential, but from a terminal registered to Victor's consulting team. A separate mechanical service entry showed that Victor authorized removal of the manual-release pin. The technicians could not prove the exact moment the pin disappeared, yet the entry matched Maeve Carr's photographs and Raymond Cole's account.
The independent investigators prepared a report for law enforcement and the Blackwater families' counsel. Rebecca reviewed the executive summary, not the protected technical appendix. The conclusion was careful: multiple unsafe decisions had converged. Crosswell had released a defective safety integration. Sterling Transit had accepted inadequate procedures. A contractor led by Victor appeared to have modified the hardware and overridden a protective mechanism. Regulatory oversight had failed to identify the combined hazard.
Nathaniel was responsible for approving the software release without adequate review. His denial of the manual command was supported by some evidence but not yet conclusively proved. Rebecca read that sentence several times. She wanted him innocent of the worst act. Wanting was not knowing.
On Thursday, she attended a meeting with the workers' legal team. Doris Velez sat at one end of the table with a photograph of Manuel beside her notebook. Henry Moss arrived after a night shift and apologized for wearing his work jacket. The attorney told him not to apologize.
Rebecca laid out a proposed process for restoring unpaid trust distributions. Langford Capital would contribute to an interim relief reserve, subject to oversight by an independent trustee and without requiring families to waive claims. Crosswell's board would assess its own obligations separately. No one would be asked to sign a broad release in exchange for immediate funds.
“Why would Langford pay if Crosswell owes it?” Henry asked.
“Because the delay hurts families now,” Rebecca replied. “And because we made money from an investment whose risks we didn't examine as carefully as we should have. That doesn't settle legal responsibility. It means we can stop using uncertainty as a reason to do nothing.”
Doris looked down at the proposed figures. “Who decides how much each family gets?”
“An independent administrator, using documented entitlements. You can challenge calculations, and the process will be explained in plain language.”
“Will we have a vote?”
Rebecca paused. “In choosing the administrator?”
“In deciding what this fund becomes afterward. We don't want another wealthy person making promises and then putting our names in a file drawer.”
Rebecca felt a sharp, deserved correction. She had arrived with a carefully designed solution and had nearly overlooked the most important feature: ownership by the people it served.
“Yes,” she said. “If you agree, we'll establish a beneficiaries' advisory committee with formal authority over the trust's reporting and appointments.”
Doris nodded slowly. “Then we can discuss the rest.”
After the meeting, Rebecca walked with her to the parking lot.
“Did Manuel like his job?” Rebecca asked.
“Most days. He complained about the early shift, but he liked the men. He used to bring home broken pallets and make garden boxes.”
“I'm sorry I didn't ask about him sooner.”
Doris looked at her. “You're asking now.”
At sunset, Rebecca received an unexpected call from Nathaniel's sister, Claire, who lived in Richmond and had never involved herself in company affairs. Claire said Victor had visited their mother that morning, asking for an old family safe-deposit key.
“Did she give it to him?” Rebecca asked.
“No. She told him to leave.”
“What was in the box?”
“Letters from our father. Mostly sentimental things. But Victor said there was one document about North Strand.”
Rebecca felt dread stir. “Where is the key now?”
“With our mother. She asked me to call you because she doesn't trust Victor, and she thinks Nathaniel won't listen to her.”
Rebecca suggested they speak with independent counsel and avoid handling the contents until the family agreed on a documented process. Claire promised to arrange it.
An hour later, a photograph arrived from Claire. It showed a letter written by the Cross brothers' father years before his death, warning Nathaniel not to let Victor manage company records or use his name on contractor forms.
At the bottom, a sentence had been underlined twice: IF HE TELLS YOU HE IS SAVING THE FAMILY, ASK WHO HE EXPECTS TO PAY.
May you like
Rebecca stared at the words. Victor had always spoken of loyalty. Nathaniel had always spoken of protecting Crosswell. She wondered how many lives had been damaged by men who could never say openly what they wanted.
The following morning, Rebecca received a handwritten note from Doris describing the first beneficiaries' committee meeting. The members had argued over appointment terms and whether an outside accountant could be removed for withholding records. They eventually agreed that no committee should need a wealthy sponsor's approval to demand an explanation. Rebecca read the note twice. She had entered this dispute believing the dramatic moment would be a confrontation with Nathaniel. Instead, the moments that stayed with her were smaller: Doris voting, Henry asking about a bank statement, a young woman volunteering to examine a contract. These people did not need Rebecca to be a heroine. They needed her to help create a structure in which nobody had to beg a heroine for the truth. She placed Doris's note in a new folder labeled GOVERNANCE, not GRATITUDE.
