Chapter 2 - THE MONEY MEANT FOR THE BABY
Emily’s daughter was delivered by emergency cesarean section at 5:41 p.m.
The baby weighed six pounds, four ounces. She breathed without assistance, but the pediatric team moved her to the neonatal observation unit because of the delayed oxygen during labor.
Emily saw her for less than thirty seconds.
“Her name is June,” she told the nurse before medication pulled her under.
When Emily woke, her older sister Kate sat beside the bed wearing rain-damp jeans and Ryan’s mother, Denise, stood near the window.
Denise did not ask about the bruises.
She asked, “What did you do to Ryan?”
Kate rose from her chair. “She gave birth after he left her beside a road.”
“That isn’t what he said.”
Emily swallowed against the rawness in her throat. “What did he say?”
Denise folded her arms.
“He said you became hysterical, grabbed the steering wheel, and demanded to get out. He says you attacked him when he tried to calm you.”
Emily looked at Kate. “Where is he?”
“No one knows,” Kate said. “The police have your SUV listed in the report.”
Denise’s eyes shifted toward the bassinet card taped beside Emily’s bed.
“He’s frightened,” she said. “This business situation has put him under terrible pressure.”
Emily had heard variations of that sentence for three years.
Bennett Home Care provided in-home aides to elderly and disabled clients across Pierce County. Denise owned sixty percent. Ryan managed operations. Lila handled payroll and billing.
The company employed twenty-seven people and frequently waited weeks for insurance reimbursements. Ryan had asked Emily to invest forty thousand dollars from the maternity fund she had built after selling her late father’s cabin.
Emily refused.
The money was supposed to cover unpaid leave, medical deductibles, and several months of expenses after June’s birth.
Denise had called that selfish.
Emily asked Kate for her phone and contacted the bank.
The representative confirmed that $38,500 had been transferred from Emily’s personal savings account at 4:32 p.m., while she was lying beside the road.
The transfer had been authenticated through her banking application using her password and a code sent to her phone.
The destination was Bennett Home Care’s payroll account.
“Can you reverse it?” Emily asked.
“The receiving bank has been notified, but some funds may already have been distributed.”
Denise stepped closer. “Payroll was due today.”
Emily lowered Kate’s phone.
“You knew?”
“I knew the company needed a temporary bridge.”
“You knew Ryan took my money?”
“I knew he was trying to protect twenty-seven families.”
“My daughter nearly died while he protected payroll.”
Denise’s face tightened. “Don’t turn this into something ugly. That company will repay you.”
“Did you tell him to take my phone?”
Denise looked away.
A neonatal nurse entered before she answered.
“Emily, June is stable. You may see her as soon as your blood pressure improves.”
Emily closed her eyes.
Denise had always treated the business as another child, one whose emergencies outranked everyone else’s.
But Lila’s words returned with new meaning.
The bank closes everything at five.
May you like
The affair and the transfer had collided on the same roadside.
Emily needed to know whether Ryan had abandoned her because his mistress needed the car, because his company needed her money, or because the two had become the same plan.
