Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Cried Accident
Lauren reached them breathless.
“Oh my God.”
She dropped beside Margaret.
Margaret recoiled.
“Don’t touch me.”
Lauren froze.
Daniel watched both women.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.” Lauren looked genuinely horrified. “Her chair just started rolling.”
Margaret stared at her.
“You pushed it.”
Lauren’s mouth opened.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“Margaret, no.”
“You checked whether Daniel was watching.”
“That’s insane.”
Daniel stepped between them.
“Lauren.”
She turned to him.
“I swear to you, I was standing behind her and the chair moved. I reached for it.”
“You had both hands on the handles,” Margaret said.
“Yes, because I was trying to stop you!”
“You pushed me.”
Lauren’s eyes filled with tears.
It happened so quickly Margaret almost admired the performance.
Lauren looked at Daniel as if he were the only safe person left in the world.
“She’s confused.”
Margaret went still.
Daniel frowned.
“What did you say?”
Lauren lowered her voice.
“We’ve talked about this.”
“No,” Daniel said. “You talked about it.”
Margaret looked between them.
“Talked about what?”
Lauren wiped a tear.
“Your memory.”
Margaret laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“My memory?”
Daniel rubbed his forehead.
“Mom, Lauren told me you’d been forgetting things.”
“Forgetting what?”
“Appointments. Conversations. Medication.”
Margaret’s blood turned cold.
She looked at Lauren.
Lauren looked away.
“When?”
Daniel asked.
“What?”
“When did she tell you this?”
“A few weeks ago.”
Margaret understood.
The forged invoices.
The fake electronic approvals.
If anyone discovered them, Lauren already had an explanation.
Margaret Hale was old.
Recovering from surgery.
Confused.
Forgetful.
Perhaps she had authorized transfers and no longer remembered.
Perhaps she had become paranoid.
Perhaps she imagined being pushed.
The plan had begun long before that morning.
Thomas Reed finally reached them, breathing heavily.
“I called 911.”
Lauren looked alarmed.
“That wasn’t necessary.”
Thomas stared at her.
“A seventy-six-year-old woman just went down this hill in a wheelchair.”
“She’s conscious.”
“That does not mean she’s uninjured.”
Sirens sounded faintly from below.
Daniel crouched beside his mother.
“Did you hit your head?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Lauren let out a quiet, wounded sound.
Margaret turned toward her.
“You want people to think I don’t know what I saw.”
“I want people to know you’re safe.”
“No. You want my son to think I’m losing my mind.”
Lauren stood.
“This is unbelievable.”
“No,” Margaret said. “What’s unbelievable is that you thought eight hundred thousand dollars would stay hidden forever.”
Lauren stopped breathing.
Only for a moment.
But Daniel saw it.
“What eight hundred thousand?”
Neither woman answered.
“Mom?”
Margaret looked at her son.
“North Coast Site Services.”
Daniel’s expression changed again.
“That’s one of our subcontractors.”
“Is it?”
“Of course it is.”
“Where is its office?”
Daniel hesitated.
Margaret continued.
“Who owns it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What projects has it worked on?”
“Accounting handles that.”
“Exactly.”
Lauren stepped closer.
“Margaret, this is not the time.”
Margaret reached inside her cardigan.
Lauren’s eyes followed the movement.
Margaret stopped.
Not yet.
Instead, she said, “I hired someone.”
Daniel frowned.
“To do what?”
“To look through the company books.”
Lauren’s fear finally showed.
Only briefly.
“What did you find?” Daniel asked.
Margaret looked directly at Lauren.
“I was about to find out.”
The ambulance arrived minutes later.
The sheriff’s deputy came with it.
Margaret gave her statement from the back of the ambulance while a paramedic examined her.
“She pushed me deliberately.”
The deputy glanced toward Lauren, who stood beside Daniel thirty feet away.
“You saw her do it?”
“I felt both hands drive the chair forward.”
“Any argument beforehand?”
Margaret hesitated.
“Yes.”
“About?”
“Money.”
The deputy wrote that down.
Daniel approached as Margaret was being prepared for transport.
“I’m coming with you.”
Lauren stepped forward.
“So am I.”
Margaret shook her head.
“No.”
Lauren stared.
Daniel did not defend her.
For the first time since their wedding six years earlier, he stepped away when Lauren reached for his arm.
The ambulance doors closed.
Margaret waited until she was alone with the paramedic.
Then she slipped one hand inside her cardigan.
The flash drive was gone.
Her breath caught.
She checked again.
Nothing.
The pocket lining had torn during the descent.
The drive could be anywhere on half a mile of mountain road.
Or—
Margaret remembered Lauren kneeling beside her.
Pretending to check whether she was hurt.
Lauren’s hand had brushed Margaret’s cardigan.
Margaret closed her eyes.
May you like
The evidence had disappeared.
And there was only one person who knew enough to steal it.
