Everyone Knew She'd Leave Me but Me novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: The Hearing
The woman across my landing opened her door on the first knock, with her cat on her shoulder.
She had a pink sticky pad in one hand.
"I wondered when somebody would come," she said. "I saw the news from the party on the building group chat."
Erin held up the photo on her phone.
The neighbor looked at it, and she laughed once, without any joy.
"He told me he was a consultant," she said. "He told me he was between jobs, and his friend in the next apartment was a very sad man who didn't pay his half of anything."
"Me," I said.
"I'm sorry." She stroked the cat. "He borrowed eleven thousand dollars from me over the spring. For a short-term bridge. I have every transfer in my phone."
Erin did not say anything.
She reached out and touched the woman's arm, once.
"Would you tell that to a room full of people?" she said.
"Honey," said the neighbor, "I'd tell it to a stadium."
The hearing was Monday at ten in the company cafeteria, because the CEO said no conference room could hold everyone who wanted to be there.
Two hundred chairs had been set in rows.
The sales floor sat on the left, and engineering sat in the middle, and the people from marketing stood along the wall holding their coffees.
At a long table at the front sat the CEO, the head of HR, and a man in a gray suit from an outside law firm.
Dean sat alone at the other table with his own lawyer.
He had a fresh haircut and a navy suit, and the red mark on his cheek had faded to nothing.
The HR head read the complaint out loud.
"Mr. Clanton alleges that Mr. Stancliffe fabricated the access log, framed Mr. Clanton for the forged resignation, and used a campaign of harassment to damage his reputation."
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