The Interview
Chapter 15 - The Interview
Nicholas looked good on television.
That was one of his worst qualities.
Even after being detained, exposed, abandoned at his own wedding, and implicated in crimes old enough to have dust on them, he still knew how to tilt his face toward a camera.
He wore no tuxedo now. Just a navy sweater and controlled sadness. Behind him, a generic hotel wall gave nothing away.
A reporter asked if Jenna had fabricated her role in his company.
Nicholas sighed.
“I am saying Jenna has struggled for a long time with resentment. Our family has tried to support her quietly.”
Jenna watched from Sister Beatrice’s kitchen table with the strange calm that came after too much shock.
Audrey, on the phone, said, “I am going to hit him with my bouquet.”
“You do not have it anymore,” Grant said in the background.
“I’ll buy another.”
Nicholas continued.
“She is talented, yes, but unstable. She attaches herself to successful people, and unfortunately Mr. Stewart appears to have been drawn into a family conflict he does not understand.”
Emmett’s expression went flat.
Margaret looked almost cheerful.
“He used the word unstable,” she said. “I was hoping he would.”
Jenna stared. “Why?”
“Because now we introduce evidence of pattern.”
Sister Beatrice set molasses cookies on the table. “Eat. Revenge on an empty stomach leads to sloppy punctuation.”
Nobody argued with a nun holding cookies.
Emmett’s communications director called. Then Grant’s. Then three nonprofit clients. Jenna let them go to voicemail because she could not bear hearing disappointment before lunch.
Her phone buzzed with an unknown number.
I know Nicholas is lying. He used my work too.
- Daniel Moss’s sister, Claire
Jenna froze.
Daniel Moss.
The boy Nicholas had hurt as a child. The old file Diane had feared.
Another message arrived.
My brother kept a journal. He wrote about Nicholas. He wrote about you too.
Jenna showed Margaret.
Margaret read it and nodded.
“Reply.”
Jenna typed with shaking hands.
Can we meet?
The answer came quickly.
I’m outside the church.
A woman stood across the street near the bakery, dark coat wrapped tight around her, hair blowing across her face. Late thirties, maybe forty, with the wary posture of someone who had spent a long time deciding whether truth was worth the trouble.
They brought her inside.
Claire Moss did not take off her coat.
“I don’t want money,” she said before sitting. “I want my brother to stop being a footnote in Nicholas Whitlock’s life.”
Jenna nodded. “Tell me.”
Claire looked at her.
“You were kind to Daniel.”
Jenna blinked.
“I barely remember him.”
“He remembered you. You brought him homework after the accident. He wrote that your brother called him weak, but you brought grape soda and told him he could draw better than anyone in school.”
A memory surfaced.
A hospital room. A boy with bandages, pale but smiling. Diane whispering in the hall. Nicholas sulking in the car.
Jenna had been eight.
“I forgot.”
“Daniel didn’t.”
Claire opened a worn canvas bag and removed a journal.
Daniel’s handwriting filled the pages, slanted and intense.
Nick took my robotics sketch. Jenna said if I make another, I should sign it in three places. She says people who steal hate signatures.
Jenna laughed softly.
Eight-year-old her had been smarter than grown-up her in some ways.
Claire turned another page.
Mr. Whitlock came by. He said Nick did wrong and I should never let people call my pain inconvenience. I liked him. Mrs. Whitlock would not come inside.
Sister Beatrice muttered, “Cowardice has excellent shoes.”
Claire handed Margaret a flash drive.
“Daniel kept source files. Emails. Drafts. One recording.”
“What recording?” Margaret asked.
“Nicholas telling Daniel he should be grateful anyone found his work useful.”
The kitchen fell silent.
Jenna thought of Emmett’s speech. Miriam’s baby. Audrey’s trust. Her own name forged onto a shell company.
Nicholas had not had one scheme.
He had a habit.
That was stronger in court.
And uglier in the heart.
Emmett stood. “I am doing an interview.”
Jenna looked up. “What?”
“My company needs to respond.”
“No.”
He paused.
Jenna stood too.
“No more powerful men speaking over stolen women to prove they care.”
He absorbed that.
Then nodded.
“You are right.”
Margaret smiled. “Growth continues to irritate me.”
Emmett looked at Jenna. “Will you speak?”
Jenna’s instinct shouted no.
She was not polished. Not media-trained. Not ready to have strangers debate her worth over breakfast.
Then Audrey’s voice came through the phone.
“I’ll stand with you.”
Rose texted: Me too.
Claire said, “Daniel would want his name there.”
Sister Beatrice pointed at the plate. “Finish the cookie first.”
By four that afternoon, they stood outside the blue church while cameras gathered.
Not Emmett alone.
Jenna. Audrey. Rose. Claire. Sister Beatrice on the steps like a holy threat. Margaret near the microphone, ready to object to bad weather if necessary.
Jenna stepped forward.
“My brother said I wanted credit for things I didn’t build,” she began.
Her voice trembled once.
Then steadied.
“He is right about one thing. I do want credit. But not only for me.”
Behind the cameras, Emmett watched silently.
May you like
And Jenna realized she was no longer at the kids’ table.
She was at the microphone.
