Chapter 5 - The Apartments With No Beds
Nora Chen met them in her attorney’s conference room on Monday.
She wore a green sweater and kept her hands wrapped around a paper cup she never drank from.
Lydia spoke before anyone sat down.
“I should have called you.”
Nora looked at her for a long moment.
“Yes,” she said.
There was no cruelty in it.
That made the word harder to bear.
Their attorneys established the purpose of the meeting. No one was being asked to guess, coordinate stories, or explain away mistakes. They were there to identify what each person had actually seen.
Nora had worked on Calder Ridge’s payment tracking system for three years.
The suspicious transactions began as small inconsistencies.
A delivery confirmed before a purchase order existed.
A vendor whose contact information changed after approval.
Then she found completed furnishing records for apartments still under construction.
“I raised it with Owen Brennan,” she said.
Graham looked up.
“He knew?”
“He said he’d investigate. Two days later, Sebastian asked whether I understood the difference between a technical issue and a business decision.”
Nora had preserved several reports within the scope of her work and later provided them to her attorney. She had not been able to see everything, but she had documented enough to show that the irregularities predated Lydia’s arrival.
When she refused to change her findings, she was dismissed.
“Why didn’t this come out then?” Graham asked.
“My lawyer reported it,” Nora said. “An inquiry started. Calder Ridge said the discrepancies were being corrected.”
Lydia stared at the table.
“They hired me to certify the correction.”
Nora nodded.
“You were experienced. Clean record. No history with the system. Your name made their explanation more convincing.”
Lydia closed her eyes.
For weeks, she had thought the job was proof that someone finally recognized her ability.
Someone had.
They had recognized exactly how useful her reputation could be.
After the meeting, Elise gave them a limited update. Investigators were comparing Nora’s reports with Lydia’s timeline and the shop records. She advised them to let that work proceed.
Graham understood.
Understanding did not make waiting easier.
On the drive home, Lydia asked him to take a different exit.
“Where?”
“Briar Street.”
One of the buildings she had found in the furnishing records stood there.
They parked across the road.
The brick apartment building had new windows and a temporary banner announcing its reopening. Two children were drawing on the sidewalk with chalk.
A woman carried grocery bags toward the entrance.
Lydia approached slowly and introduced herself.
She did not mention fraud.
She asked whether the building had reopened on schedule.
The woman laughed without amusement.
“Depends whose schedule.”
Her name was Renee Walker.
She and her son had spent nine additional weeks in a motel after their apartment was supposedly ready.
“No beds,” she said. “No table. Nothing for the kid’s room. They kept saying everything had been delivered.”
Graham glanced at Lydia.
She looked as though she had been struck.
“Did you eventually get furniture?” he asked.
“Church brought some. My boy slept on a camping mattress until then.”
Renee studied them.
“Why?”
Lydia drew a breath.
“I worked for the company that tracked the deliveries. I’m speaking with investigators about some records that may be wrong.”
Renee set her grocery bags down.
“My son thought we couldn’t go home because I filled out the forms wrong.”
The street seemed to narrow around them.
“He heard me on the phone so much,” she continued. “Started apologizing whenever I opened the mail.”
Lydia’s eyes filled.
“I’m sorry.”
Renee looked tired.
“I don’t need you to be sorry. I need somebody to fix it.”
Graham nodded.
He understood that language.
Back at the truck, Lydia wiped her face.
“I can’t undo this.”
“No.”
“I don’t even know what fixing it means.”
“We start by telling the truth.”
Graham looked back at the building.
Then he took out his notebook and wrote down Renee’s contact information, with her permission.
He would give it to Elise.
And when the legal questions were settled, he wanted to know how many children still needed beds.
For the first time in days, Lydia sat a little straighter.
That night, Brennan called.
“I need to speak to you,” he said.
May you like
Graham put him on speaker.
“Then start with what you knew.”
