Chapter 8 - THE PRICE OF TELLING THE TRUTH
“Immunity?”
My voice echoed through the boardroom.
Eleanor folded her hands.
“Derek's attorney has approached federal investigators.”
“For what?”
“Potential violations of transportation safety regulations, false certifications, and obstruction of an investigation.”
I stared at the statement.
“Derek signed the maintenance overrides. Now he wants to blame me?”
“He claims he acted under your instructions,” Eleanor said.
“That's a lie.”
“Then we'll need evidence.”
Grant remained by the window.
I turned toward him.
“You know I didn't authorize those records.”
He looked down.
“I know you didn't personally review them.”
“That's not the same thing.”
“No,” he admitted. “It isn't.”
Eleanor cleared her throat.
“The board has a duty to protect the company.”
“And I have a duty to find out why my wife died.”
Nobody spoke.
I looked at the directors I'd worked beside for years.
Some seemed frightened.
Others angry.
But most were calculating.
Legal exposure.
Shareholder losses.
Contract cancellations.
I understood those calculations.
I'd made them myself.
For fourteen years.
“I'll cooperate with the investigation,” I said.
Eleanor nodded.
“Then you'll need to take temporary leave.”
I looked at Grant.
“Who becomes acting CEO?”
He said nothing.
Eleanor answered.
“Grant.”
For a moment, I almost laughed.
The man whose approvals were scattered across the records would now control the company while I stood accused.
“No,” I said.
Eleanor's expression tightened.
“The board has already voted.”
“Then record my objection.”
I placed Catherine's handwritten note on the table.
“Because if this company survives by burying the truth, it doesn't deserve my name.”
Outside headquarters, reporters waited beneath umbrellas.
Someone had leaked the board's decision.
Questions flew as I approached my car.
“Mr. Vale, did you authorize unsafe vehicles?”
“Were company funds misused?”
“Is it true your wife's accident is being reopened?”
I said nothing.
Not because I wanted to hide.
Because I wasn't going to use Catherine's death as a public-relations argument.
I drove directly to Nora's house.
Eli and Maggie were in the kitchen, decorating cookies.
Sarah sat at the table, looking healthier than she had a week earlier.
Nora had insisted she stay until she recovered enough to return home.
Maggie looked up.
“Mr. Ronan!”
She held out a crooked cookie covered in blue frosting.
“It's a truck.”
I examined it.
“It looks very fast.”
“It's a safe truck,” she corrected.
The words went straight through me.
“Then it's the best truck I've seen.”
Sarah noticed my expression.
“What happened?”
I sat down.
“The board suspended me.”
She went still.
“Because of the investigation?”
“Yes.”
Maggie frowned.
“Are you in trouble?”
I looked at her.
“Some people think I did something wrong.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
She studied me.
“Then tell them.”
Sarah looked away.
Her daughter's simple faith made the room painfully quiet.
That night, I received the independent investigators' expanded report.
Not through my company.
Through the external firm's secure portal, to which I still had access as the person who commissioned the review.
The report showed that Derek's statement contained several inconsistencies.
One concerned the timing of Catherine's final trip.
He claimed she left Eastbank at 3:20 p.m.
But a toll record placed her car six miles away at 3:07.
Another discrepancy concerned the passenger.
Derek claimed he rode with Catherine until she dropped him at a gas station.
Yet the accident report listed the passenger seat as empty.
I examined the photographs.
The front passenger airbag had deployed.
That could happen without someone sitting there.
But the seat belt was extended and locked.
I called Thomas.
He answered from his room at the rehabilitation center.
“Have you seen the photographs from Catherine's accident?”
“Not all of them.”
“Did she ever tell you why she trusted Derek?”
Thomas was silent.
Then he said, “She didn't.”
“What?”
“She knew he was involved in the altered records.”
“Then why let him into her car?”
“Because he promised to bring the original maintenance logs. Catherine believed he wanted to cooperate.”
I looked at the photograph again.
“Did you ever hear from him afterward?”
“Once.”
“When?”
“Two days after the accident.”
My pulse quickened.
“What did he say?”
Thomas took a slow breath.
“He told me Catherine had changed her mind about exposing the company.”
I stared at the wall.
“Did you believe him?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Catherine had already made copies.”
“Where?”
Thomas hesitated.
“In a place Mercer never thought to look.”
The following morning, Sarah took Maggie's blue backpack from the hall closet.
She laid it on the kitchen table.
“This belonged to Catherine first.”
I stared.
“What?”
Sarah turned it over.
Beneath the faded fabric was a small stitched label.
C. VALE
My breath caught.
Catherine had owned that backpack during college.
She used it on hiking trips.
After Eli was born, she carried his snacks and extra clothes inside.
I'd forgotten it existed.
“Why does Maggie have it?”
Sarah's eyes filled.
“Catherine gave it to me before she died. She said if anything went wrong, I should keep the things inside safe.”
I opened the largest pocket.
Empty.
The smaller one held a pencil and an old receipt.
Sarah pointed toward the lining.
“Catherine was clever.”
There was a nearly invisible seam beneath the interior fabric.
She carefully opened it with a small pair of scissors.
Inside was a flat plastic sleeve.
My heart began pounding.
Sarah lifted it out.
It contained a memory card, a handwritten index, and a photograph.
The photograph showed Catherine standing beside the Eastbank relief-fund office.
She was smiling.
Next to her stood Sarah.
And between them was Grant.
I stared at his face.
He didn't look threatening.
He looked devastated.
Sarah pointed toward the handwritten index.
“This is what Catherine meant to give Thomas.”
I unfolded the page.
It listed dates, vehicle numbers, and the names of injured employees.
At the bottom was one final entry.
OCTOBER 17 — DEREK'S VEHICLE — VIDEO COPY SAVED.
I looked up.
“Video?”
Sarah nodded.
“Catherine's car had a dashboard camera.”
My heart stopped.
“The police report said there wasn't one.”
“She installed it herself.”
I examined the memory card.
A tiny label was attached.
In Catherine's handwriting were three words.
FOR RONAN ONLY.
We played the file on an offline laptop.
The recording began inside Catherine's parked car.
Rain moved across the windshield.
Her voice was clear.
“If you're watching this, Ronan, I hope it means I was wrong to be afraid.”
My throat closed.
She looked directly into the camera.
“I love you. I love Eli. And I need you to understand that this was never about destroying what you built.”
She wiped her cheek.
“It was about saving the people who helped you build it.”
The recording jumped forward.
Derek entered the passenger seat.
He looked nervous.
Catherine asked, “Did you bring the original logs?”
He nodded.
Then the audio crackled.
They argued about a vehicle being allowed back onto the road.
Derek insisted he'd been following orders.
Catherine asked whose orders.
He said nothing.
The car began moving.
For several minutes, there was only rain and the sound of tires on wet pavement.
Then Derek looked at Catherine.
“You don't know what Mercer did.”
Catherine tightened her hands on the wheel.
“What did Grant do?”
Derek swallowed.
“He didn't just hide the reports.”
The recording shook as Catherine glanced toward him.
Derek's next words made my skin go cold.
“He used your son's medical treatment to cover the missing relief-fund money.”
Then the video showed headlights suddenly cutting across Catherine's lane.
She shouted.
The image lurched.
May you like
And just before the recording ended, Derek screamed one final sentence.
“THAT'S ONE OF OUR OWN TRUCKS!”
