Chapter 7
She was quiet, then spoke. "We spoiled Nathan. His father died early, the company landed on him, and one good result made us decide he could do no wrong. I've met Joanna. Polite, good with words, always sat and talked with me."
I said nothing.
Hannah went on. "I wasn't at the party last night. I watched the videos this morning. Nathan was a fool, and the family looked like one."
She looked up at me.
"But if the Westside Project stops, a few hundred employees go under with it. I know how this sounds from me, and I'm asking anyway for them. End the engagement, take the apartment back, and let Nathan learn. Can the project breathe?"
My finger touched the rim of my cup.
Hannah hadn't scolded me, and she hadn't pulled rank as an elder.
That made her smarter than Grace, and harder to handle than Nathan.
I pushed a file across to her.
"Mrs. Hall, I didn't decide this today. The money on that job started moving strangely last month. Nathan took part of the working capital and put it toward a charity film for Joanna, a studio lease, a crew, and paid trending placements."
Hannah's face changed, piece by piece.
I kept going. "The amounts aren't large, but the nature of it is filthy. The Young Family can carry business risk. We don't keep a woman for Nathan Hall."
Hannah's fingers closed around her cane. "Do you have proof?"
I turned the tablet toward her.
It showed several payments and the names on the invoices.
Film production services, charity communication consulting, and studio space rental.
The Hall Corporation project money went around in a circle and landed with Joanna.
Hannah read slowly.
The office went quiet.
After a while, she closed her eyes. "Bastard."
She didn't say it loudly, and it carried more weight than all of Grace's crying.
I took the tablet back.
"We can discuss room to breathe, on three conditions. Nathan leaves the Westside management. Hall Corporation submits a new financial audit. And Hall Corporation says publicly that last night's engagement and my funding decision are separate matters."
Hannah looked up.
She held my eyes for a moment, then nodded. "I'll call a board meeting."
I let it stand there.
Hannah stopped at the door.
She said, "Vivian, I've heard Joanna say her parents died young too. Every holiday she says she has nowhere to go, and that's why Nathan feels for her the way he does."
I looked at her.
Hannah's voice went lower. "If that part is false as well, don't leave this family anything to hide behind."
My assistant came in soon after she left.
She asked, "Ms. Young, will Mrs. Hall cooperate?"
"She will." I picked up my phone. "She loves her grandson, and she isn't stupid enough to bury the whole company with Joanna."
On my phone, Joanna's post had already reached the local trending list.
[Heiress Humiliates Orphan]
The comments got louder.
Somebody found my account and filled in the replies under my latest business post.
[Apologize to Joanna!]
[Money doesn't give you the right to step on people.]
[Wrecking an engagement and hitting people. That's disgusting.]
I read two of them and closed the app.
At four in the afternoon, Nathan finally put out a statement.
He didn't mention the canceled engagement or the funding.
He wrote: [Joanna has been like a little sister to me for years. Last night wasn't arranged well, but I don't regret giving a girl with no home a warm holiday. Please don't attack her. Come after me instead.]
I read it and nearly dropped my phone laughing.
He had hitched his wagon to hers.
My assistant asked carefully, "Do you want to respond?"
I set the phone down. "No response. Start with her family."
"And if we find nothing?"
I looked out the window.
"Then find out where her money comes from. A real orphan doesn't run her suffering like a set of books, unless she knows suffering pays."
The sky was going dark when my assistant got the first reply.
On Joanna's financial aid application, her father was listed as deceased.
But the public records check showed that the deceased man had enrolled in Medicare back home the year before.
I read it through and smiled, "Good."
My assistant stared.
I put the file in a drawer.
I said, "Keep going, and don't spook anyone. Nathan wanted to give her a warm holiday. Let him hold that fire a few more days."
I opened my phone and looked at his statement again.
The comments were all praising him for standing up for someone.
I saved it.
A man who handed over the knife himself was rare.
That deserved careful handling.
*****
Joanna's second video went up at eight that night.
She sat in a small rented room with half a pie on the table and a string of old lights on the wall behind her.
Her eyes were red and swollen on camera, and her voice was soft.
"A lot of people have asked me what happened last night. I don't want to talk about it, because Nathan has been so good to me, and what he has with Vivian shouldn't be damaged by me."
She paused, and a tear came down right on cue.
"I've had no home since I was sixteen. Every holiday I'm afraid to watch other families. Nathan paid for school and sent me care packages and told me somebody still remembered me. I only ever thought of him as a brother."
The video ran for three minutes.
She didn't mention that the dress was mine, that the stage was mine, or that Nathan had handed her a place in his family in front of everyone.
She only said she had no home, that holidays frightened her, and that I had humiliated her in public.
The comments blew open.
[I'm crying. She's so pitiful.]
[He's supported her for years. Of course, there are feelings. The rich fiancée can't handle that?]
[Vivian Young is too much. Marrying her would be a life sentence.]
[Run, Joanna. Don't let a rich girl bury you.]
Somebody cut the video of me slapping Nathan and put a title on it.
[Fiancee slaps Hall Corporation's president in public, all because he hugged an orphan.]
The editing was good.
Everything I said was cut out. All that was left was Nathan turning his face away and Joanna throwing herself in front of him.
It left one devoted man, one innocent girl, and one lunatic fiancée.
They cut the whole thing like a cheap drama, and cheap drama was what people wanted.
I sat on my couch with files spread out in front of me.
My assistant sent over new findings one at a time.
Joanna's father, David Reed, was alive.
Her mother, Linda Reed, was alive too.
They lived in a small town outside the next county, with a house they built themselves and a liquor and tobacco shop. Not wealthy, but a long way from an orphan with nowhere to go.
Better still, Joanna had really applied for hardship aid in high school and then sought several charity funds in college. Every application said both parents were dead, and no guardian existed.
I turned to one page and stopped.