Not Dying for Her Lie Again novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Paid Leave

Kenneth puts Delaney on leave and orders a test after the birth; Molly's family dinner, her father's tight chest, and Delaney's viral post naming her.

For a moment I thought I had misheard.

The HR director's pen rolled off the table and she did not pick it up.

The floor lead stared at the speaker.

Kenneth did not move.

In the last life I never heard what Delaney said to him, because I was not in the room.

I had only read it later, in the court filing.

"A relationship between the plaintiff and the chief executive."

I had thought it was one more lie.

Now I watched him take it in, and he did not look surprised.

He looked like a man who had been waiting for a bill to arrive.

"One night, Delaney," he said into the phone. "At the holiday party. Nine months ago."

"Eleven weeks," she said sweetly. "You do the math."

"I did the math. It doesn't work."

"Ask your doctor."

"I will," he said. "A paternity test, after the birth. I'll pay for it. Until then you're on paid leave, and you will not set foot in this building."

"Kenneth, that's cruel. I'm hurt, I'm scared, I'm alone."

"Your pay continues. Your insurance continues. The camera stays on."

"You'll regret this," she said, and the line clicked off.

The HR director leaned back in her chair.

"Mr. Ashworth," she said carefully. "If she's telling the truth about the pregnancy..."

"She may be," he said. "She isn't telling the truth about the stairs."

He turned to me, and for a second his grey eyes held mine.

I could not read them.

"Ms. Lundberg, you were right to film it," he said. "Go home. You're off the clock for the day. Don't speak to anyone about this."

"Is that an order?" I said.

"It's a request."

I stood up.

My knees were not steady.

"Thank you," I said, and that was all I could get out.

At the door I looked back once.

He was watching the frozen frame of Delaney on the screen, and his hand was closed so tightly on the back of a chair that his knuckles were white.

I took the train home to Berwyn and sat on the train with my forehead against the window.

My mom and dad's brick bungalow looked exactly the way I remembered it.

The porch light had the same cracked glass.

The tomato cages were still standing in the dead garden.

I stood on the front walk for a full minute and could not make my feet go up the steps.

Then the door opened, and my mother leaned out in her apron.

"Molly? You're home early. What happened?"

She looked at my face and her whole face changed.

"Come in," June Lundberg said. "Come in right now."

Her kitchen smelled like onions and bay leaf.

The radio on the counter was playing an old Motown song, and she was talking to it the way she always did.

"No, honey, that's not how you hit that note."

I put my arms around her from behind and held on.

"Pipes," she said, surprised. "What's all this?"

"Nothing," I said into her shoulder. "Just a long day."

My dad came in from the backyard with sawdust in his hair.

Ray Lundberg stopped in the doorway with a bad habit I had forgotten, rubbing his left arm with his right hand.

"Hey, kid," he said, and grinned.

"Dad. Does your arm hurt?"

"Nah. Slept on it funny."

"Dad."

"Funny, I said."

My mother looked at him sharply.

He waved her off and went to wash up.

That night after dinner I sat on my old bed and held my phone in both hands.

I had saved the video in three places.

I had sent a copy to my own email and to a cloud folder with a password nobody knew.

I would not be caught with nothing again.

My phone buzzed.

A coworker I barely knew had sent me a link with no message.

I tapped it.

It was Delaney's account.

She had posted a photo from her hospital bed, pale and pretty, with one hand on her belly and an IV in her arm.

"Pushed down the stairs at work while carrying my baby," the caption said. "The person who did it works on my floor. Her name is Molly Lundberg. Please share so this never happens to another pregnant woman."

Under it was my employee badge photo.

It already had forty thousand shares.

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