Chapter 6 - The Cost of Telling the Truth

Three days after the authentication logs were secured, the first group of forestry workers received notices that their shifts would be reduced until further notice.

Blackridge described the change as seasonal scheduling. Rosa Alvarez called it something else.

“They know who spoke up,” she told me over the phone.

She sounded exhausted. I could hear traffic in the background and imagined her taking a break somewhere between two jobs.

“Do you know that for certain?” I asked.

“No. But my crew hasn't been short of work in months. Suddenly the schedule is empty.”

I wished I could promise to fix it. Instead, I called Isabel.

She arranged for the workers' representative and the investigator to receive the notices. She warned me that proving retaliation required more than suspicious timing, even when the timing made my skin crawl.

Meanwhile, Blackridge's housing office sent me a second letter. It said that administrative leave did not automatically terminate my lease, but an adverse employment decision could change my eligibility. The language was carefully measured, designed to frighten me without openly threatening immediate eviction.

I sat at my kitchen table and made a list of everything I could afford if the worst happened.

Rent in a building not owned by Blackridge.

Insurance without my employer.

Car repairs.

Groceries.

The numbers did not add up neatly. They never had.

I considered calling Nathaniel. Then I called Isabel instead.

“Can they do this?” I asked.

“They can send a letter,” she replied. “That doesn't mean every action they threaten would be lawful. We've requested a hold while the allegations are reviewed.”

She had also connected me with a local worker-support organization that could advise me on housing and insurance alternatives if my employment ended. I had resisted accepting help at first, ashamed that my life had become so fragile. But that afternoon I took down the information and made the calls.

For the first time, I was building options that didn't run through Blackridge.

That evening, Daniel appeared outside my apartment building.

He was standing beside a dark car, holding a slim envelope. I stopped several feet away, keeping the entrance behind me.

“I only want five minutes,” he said.

“You can speak to Isabel.”

“This isn't about lawyers.”

“It became about lawyers when you put my name on approvals I didn't make.”

He looked tired. It might have moved me once.

“Grant is furious,” he said. “He thinks you're trying to destroy the company.”

“I'm trying to establish what happened to workers' wages.”

Daniel held out the envelope. “There's a severance package. Enough to move, enough to get through a few months. You sign an agreement, the investigation into your employment ends, and everyone can go on with their lives.”

I didn't take it.

“Does everyone include the workers?”

“Don't make this bigger than it needs to be.”

“Was it small when you put my name on those transactions?”

For a moment, his face showed the old impatience I remembered from discussions he didn't want to have.

“You don't know what Grant can do,” he said.

I felt a flash of fear. Not because I thought Daniel was brave, but because he wasn't. Men who hid behind more powerful people could be dangerous in ways they never admitted.

“Then you should tell the investigators,” I said.

He dropped the envelope onto the roof of his car.

“I didn't start this.”

“You had chances to stop.”

Daniel looked at me for a long moment. Then he got into the car and drove away, taking the envelope with him.

I called Isabel before going upstairs. She asked me to record the encounter in my own words while the details were fresh. I did so immediately.

The next day she requested that any settlement offer be made through counsel, with all conditions disclosed. No agreement could end an independent wage investigation simply because Daniel wished it away.

Nathaniel called late that afternoon.

“Did Daniel approach you?” he asked.

“Yes. How did you know?”

“Grant's office told Pinehaven the employee matter was nearly resolved. I wanted to know whether that was true.”

“It isn't.”

“Good.” He paused. “I mean it's good you weren't pressured into signing something.”

I nearly smiled.

“You're not used to explaining yourself, are you?”

“No.”

I looked at the view from my apartment window: a narrow strip of street, the laundromat sign, people carrying baskets through the evening cold.

“People say you're dangerous,” I told him.

“People are right to be careful around me.”

He didn't romanticize the answer. It made me listen.

“I run businesses that have hurt people. Some of the people I trusted were paid to keep me from seeing how. I won't pretend the only problem is Blackridge.”

“Then why did you help me?”

“Because leaving you alone with that room was wrong. Everything afterward has been your decision.”

I thought about the black coat, the way he had let me return it, and the fact that he had never asked me to stop speaking to Isabel.

“Keep it that way,” I said.

“I intend to.”

A week later, the investigators interviewed several workers. Rosa brought her time sheets. Others brought messages from site supervisors confirming the hours they had worked. Their accounts matched patterns Elaine remembered and the missing categories in my notebook.

The evidence was accumulating in more than one person's hands now.

But a problem remained. Clearwater Staffing was registered through layers of companies. The first records obtained showed payments arriving, then being split between several business accounts. The apparent owners were administrative agents, not the people who ultimately benefited.

Isabel called me after reviewing the investigator's latest permitted summary.

“They've traced some transfers,” she said. “But there's a gap between Clearwater and the people controlling it.”

“Can they close it?”

“Maybe. Someone with authority over the related contracts would have to explain why those payments were approved.”

I pictured Grant at the gala, raising his glass to loyalty while the people paid to keep the event running sat in silence.

Then Isabel said something that changed where I thought the next answer might come from.

“There's one family whose land agreements appear on the same payment schedule. The Cross family.”

Madeline's family.

May you like

[COMPLETED] “GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY DRESS! YOU’RE NOTHING BUT AN OLD SEAM...

[COMPLETED] At the Mafia Boss's Engagement Party, I Served His Hungry So...

[COMPLETED] The Mafia Boss’s Fiancée Tried to Dismiss His Father’s Loyal...

I remembered the silver bracelet against her wrist and Daniel's look of relief.

Suddenly I wondered whether his public choice had been about much more than marrying rich.