Chapter 6 - What He Thought She Would Forgive
Spencer arrived twenty minutes late to Elaine’s office.
He wore a baseball cap low over his eyes and carried no hospital paperwork. When he saw Naomi beside the conference table, he stopped.
“This is a setup.”
“It’s a meeting,” Elaine said. “Sit down.”
Spencer remained standing.
Abigail placed one forged medical invoice on the table, followed by a church donation letter, the bank application, and the email describing her as the person who would take the blame.
His gaze moved across them without surprise.
That hurt more than a denial would have.
“The shop was collapsing,” he said. “I was trying to keep people employed.”
“You stole from retired people,” Abigail replied.
“I borrowed money.”
“You invented treatments.”
“I am sick.”
“You are not dying.”
Spencer pulled off his cap. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to fail at everything your father expected from you?”
Abigail did.
Her late husband had built Spencer’s first workbench and loaned him money to open the shop. After his death, Abigail had continued treating the business as proof that Spencer was doing well.
She had ignored overdue notices, unexplained emergencies, and the way every crisis ended with her checkbook open.
“I kept saving you because I couldn’t admit I had raised a man who expected rescue,” she said. “That part belongs to me.”
Spencer looked at her for the first time.
Then Elaine asked whether he would authorize access to the remaining business accounts and cooperate with an independent audit.
“If I do that, the shop is finished.”
“The shop is already finished,” Naomi said quietly.
Spencer turned on her. “You made the invoices.”
“At your direction.”
“You took money, too.”
Naomi’s face tightened. “I was paid a salary. And I’m giving them everything.”
Spencer reached for the documents, but Elaine placed her hand over them.
“The bank has copies. So does the church’s insurer.”
He sat down.
For several seconds, he rubbed the edge of his hospital wristband.
Then he looked at Abigail and said, “You can fix this. Your good news was money, wasn’t it?”
She did not answer.
His eyes sharpened.
“How much?”
That single question ended whatever uncertainty remained.
Elaine opened the conference-room door. Reverend Paul and the church treasurer were waiting outside with two members of the insurer’s fraud team.
Spencer looked toward his mother.
Abigail moved her chair farther away from him.
“Tell them what you did,” she said.
May you like
He looked at the people in the doorway, then back at the papers bearing his mother’s stolen signature.
When he spoke, he blamed Naomi first.
