Chapter 24: Elaine's Last Move

Once Margaret Pierce became involved, everything accelerated.

Her attorneys demanded an audit of the foundation communications connected to me.

Westbridge hired an outside investigator.

Counselor Bennett stopped sending emails.

Elaine stopped answering Richard.

Then, three days later, she disappeared.

Not dramatically.

No abandoned car.

No mysterious note.

She simply failed to appear for a scheduled interview with investigators.

Her attorney said he could not reach her.

Richard called Greer.

Greer didn't know where she was.

Police treated her as a person they wanted to locate, not as a fugitive.

Officer Ramirez reminded everyone not to invent crimes before evidence existed.

I appreciated that more every day.

At school, life was beginning to resemble school again.

I took a chemistry quiz.

I complained about cafeteria pasta.

I stayed after class to ask about an assignment I'd missed during surgery.

Normal things.

Beautiful things.

Then my phone buzzed during study hall.

Unknown number.

I stared at it.

I didn't open the message.

I raised my hand and asked to go to the office.

Officer Ramirez was contacted.

The message contained an address.

And one sentence.

“If you want the original records, come alone.”

My mother nearly shouted when she heard.

“Absolutely not.”

“I wasn't planning to.”

She stopped.

“Good.”

That felt like progress for both of us.

Police went instead.

The address led to a rented storage unit.

Elaine wasn't there.

But records were.

Boxes of them.

Copies of my school documents.

Photographs.

Reports from the private investigator.

Foundation correspondence.

And files concerning Greer.

Years of them.

Her messages.

Her appointments.

Her friendships.

Even photographs of Dr. Lowe.

Elaine hadn't only monitored me.

She had monitored her own daughter.

When Greer learned, she broke down.

I wasn't present.

Richard told my mother later.

Apparently Greer kept repeating:

“She never trusted me.”

I understood why that hurt.

Still, I remembered what Greer had done with her fear.

Understanding wasn't absolution.

The storage unit also produced the missing trust notification.

A copy marked:

“Hold — E.P.”

Elaine Pierce.

Ms. Alvarez explained that investigators would determine what laws, if any, had been violated.

I didn't need to decide that.

For once, adults were doing their jobs.

Two days later, Elaine returned through her attorney.

She agreed to questioning.

Her explanation eventually reached us through the investigation.

She claimed she had never intended physical harm.

She said she monitored me because Richard's secret threatened the family.

She said she monitored Greer because Dr. Lowe frightened her.

She admitted asking Bennett for updates about me.

She denied ordering anyone to threaten me.

She denied entering our apartment.

She denied taking the photograph outside the pharmacy.

Then police recovered location data from the Pierce Holdings sedan.

At 4:12 p.m. on the day the photograph was taken, the car had been on my street.

Elaine had been using it.

Her explanation changed.

She said she had followed me only to see whether I was meeting Richard.

“At seventeen?” my mother said when Ms. Alvarez told us.

“She thought her husband was secretly meeting his teenage daughter in an alley?”

Nothing about Elaine's fear had been rational.

That was the danger.

People could build entire systems around stories they desperately wanted to believe.

Elaine eventually admitted taking the photograph.

She claimed she sent it from Mason's prepaid phone after finding the device in Greer's possession.

That part shocked me.

“Greer had the phone?”

Ramirez nodded.

“According to current evidence, Mason gave it to Greer after sending the first threats. Greer says she hid it in her room and never used it.”

“Then Elaine found it.”

“That's what device and location evidence currently suggests.”

The chain was absurd.

Mason bought the phone.

Mason threatened me.

Greer possessed it.

Elaine found it.

Elaine followed me.

Elaine sent the photograph.

Then the same device had become evidence against all of them.

Every attempt to frighten me had created another trail.

At Greer's final return meeting, she asked to speak to me through Dr. Patel.

I agreed to five minutes.

We sat across from each other.

“My mom says you destroyed our family,” Greer said.

I waited.

“Do you believe her?”

Greer shook her head.

“No.”

Her eyes filled.

“I think we did that ourselves.”

I looked at her for a long time.

“Your family existed before I knew any of you.”

“I know.”

“And whatever happens next isn't my revenge.”

She nodded.

“I know that too.”

She pushed the apology envelope across the table again.

This time, I took it.

I didn't open it.

Not yet.

Greer stood.

At the door, she stopped.

“Imogen?”

“What?”

“Why didn't you post the pictures of me and Dr. Lowe?”

I answered without thinking.

“Because being at OB-GYN doesn't make you public property.”

Greer closed her eyes.

Then she left.

I looked down at the envelope.

The first time around, Greer had taught everyone to treat my body like gossip.

This time, I had beaten her without becoming her.