CHAPTER FOURTEEN E: THE DONOR WHO WANTED A PHOTOGRAPH

Yvette met donor Martin Bell at a cafe near the river.
Martin owned a chain of grocery stores and had funded two scholarship programs that the foundation administered.
He told her that he was prepared to continue supporting those scholarships but wanted a photograph of the training center before releasing another installment.
Yvette explained that the center was not ready for students.
Martin said Cedric had shown him a photograph of a finished classroom the previous week.
Yvette asked him to forward the image.
When it arrived, Damian recognized the layout immediately.
The classroom was a rented conference suite in a hotel outside the city.
He had installed an air handling unit in that hotel two years earlier and remembered the unusual curved ceiling.


Yvette asked Martin whether he had visited the building.
Martin said Cedric had discouraged visits because construction crews needed room to work.
Yvette told him that the photograph did not show the warehouse.
Martin studied her face for a long moment.
He asked whether she was accusing her husband of lying to donors.
She said she was describing a photograph and a building that did not match.
Martin took off his glasses and wiped them with a napkin.
He admitted that he had used the image in a presentation to his company’s employees.
Some of those employees had donated from their paychecks.
Yvette offered to speak to them directly and explain what the foundation knew.
Martin asked her not to make promises until the review was finished.
He was not being cruel.


He was telling her that his staff deserved something more dependable than her confidence.
Yvette agreed and arranged a meeting with their employee committee.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN F: THE OTHER HOUSE

Damian returned to the house he had shared with Briana to collect winter clothing and tools from the garage.
Briana had agreed to leave the side door unlocked during the scheduled hour.
He found the garage swept clean and the tools arranged on the workbench in the same order he had used for years.
A note beside the drill case said she had replaced the battery she borrowed last winter.
He stared at the note longer than he intended.
Briana appeared in the doorway wearing a gray sweater he had given her on their second anniversary.
She asked whether he needed help loading the truck.
He said he could manage.
They worked in silence until she carried a small box containing photographs from their wedding.
She asked whether he wanted them.
Damian said he wanted the photographs that included his parents and grandparents.
Briana offered to make copies of the others.
He thanked her.
She asked whether he hated her.
Damian set the box on the tailgate and considered the question.
He said he was angry about what she had done and sad about what they had lost.
He did not know whether hatred described either feeling.
Briana looked toward the kitchen window.
She admitted that Cedric had promised to help her become chief operating officer if she proved she could manage difficult relationships.
Damian asked whether that was how Cedric had described their affair.
She said Cedric had never used the word affair until Damian discovered it.
He had called their relationship a partnership and insisted that ordinary people would not understand.
Damian felt a fresh wave of humiliation, but he did not turn it into a speech.
He asked Briana whether she was getting independent legal advice.
She nodded.
He said that was good and closed the truck.
When he drove away, the house looked exactly as it had when he believed their marriage was safe.
That ordinary appearance troubled him more than an empty driveway would have.