“Maybe somebody at the buyer’s office guessed,” he said.
His own voice made clear he did not believe it.
I asked him to save every email and call log.
We would give the business records to Sato if she considered them relevant.
Daniel leaned back and stared at the camera’s empty place on the shelf.
“Dad trusted people too easily,” he said.
I nearly laughed at the irony.
Our father had trusted almost nobody outside the shop.
He once made a salesman wait in the rain because the man had arrived twenty minutes early.
“Dad trusted evidence,” I replied.
Daniel nodded and looked toward the hallway.
“Then we’d better find out what they did with ours.”
Chapter 10: The Woman at the Interview
The recruiter who interviewed me was named Simone Keller.
I contacted her through the company’s official address and explained that private details from our conversation might have been exposed.
I did not ask her to reveal confidential hiring information.
I asked only whether anyone outside the interview had contacted her about me.
Simone responded the next morning with a request to speak by telephone.
She told me the company had received an anonymous message claiming I was unreliable and abusing prescription medication.
The message arrived two days after my interview.
It mentioned my knee operation and the possibility that I would need additional leave.
Those facts were not in my application.
I had mentioned them casually after Simone noticed me shifting in my chair during the video call.
The accusation had made its way into an internal risk review.
Simone could not tell me whether it affected the hiring decision.
She did tell me that the company was preserving the message because it appeared to contain personal information obtained without permission.
I thanked her for taking the call.
Then I sat still while the implications settled.
Patricia had not merely observed my life.
Someone had used what they heard to interfere with opportunities that might have changed it.
The difference mattered.
I was no longer concerned only with who had seen my living room.
I wanted to know who had taken the information beyond my walls and why.
Chapter 11: The First Public Lie
On Thursday the neighborhood discussion board filled with messages about me.
The first appeared from Patricia’s account at seven fourteen in the morning.
She claimed I had stolen valuable association equipment during a medication-related episode.
She urged residents not to confront me because I might be dangerous.
