20. Athena
ATHENA
By the time I get back to the Airbnb, I’m angrier, but I’m also looking to finish things once and for all. Nate didn’t just hurt Nathan. He reached across years, cities, jobs, and fear, and put his hands on something that was never his to touch.
Maya looks up the second I walk in, and her eyes narrow in that immediate, practical way when she knows I’m holding too much at once. She’s cross-legged on the couch with Ivy tucked against her side, both of them under the same blanket like they negotiated a treaty.
“Well,” Maya says, setting her phone down. “That face means you found something ugly.”
I close the door behind me and lock it without thinking. “I found the person.”
Ivy sits up straighter. Her bunny drops into her lap, forgotten for once. “Who was it, Mom?”
I consider her question for a moment, then decide I’m telling her. She deserves to know, considering how badass she’s been. “Honey,” I say, softening my voice. “From now on, we’ll refer to him as Nate the bad guy.”
“Nate the bad guy,” she repeats, and the certainty in her voice almost makes me laugh.
Maya pats the empty cushion beside them. “Before you go full vigilante, sit down and eat. I got soup, bread, grilled cheese, and enough fries to qualify as emotional support.”
That does get a laugh out of me, brief and thin, but real enough. I sit, let her hand me a bowl, and stare at the steam for a second before I take the first spoonful. I didn’t realize how hungry I was until the warmth hits my tongue.
Ivy watches me over the rim of her juice box. “You’re supposed to tell us everything now.”
Maya glances at her. “Jesus, you two really are related.”
I set the bowl down and wipe my fingers on a napkin.
Ivy is looking at me with those storm-gray eyes, open and steady, and I know if I start editing this now, I’ll be doing the same thing I’ve always done.
Protecting her by cutting out the parts that matter.
Keeping her safe by keeping her in the dark.
I’m done with that. “Okay,” I say quietly. “Everything you need to know.”
Ivy nods once, solemn and ready. Maya folds one leg under herself and waits.
“I went to the place where Nathan was attacked,” I begin. “There was security footage from the street, and I got to watch it with the building manager while she stayed in the room. I didn’t get a copy. I didn’t need one.”
Maya’s brows lift. “You identified him from the footage.”
“Yes,” I say.
Ivy hugs her bunny closer. “How?”
“The hoodie,” I reply, and my mouth twists. “A dark one with a stripe on the sleeve and a stupid little logo near the pocket. I bought it years ago for Nate the bad guy when I still made bad decisions on purpose.”
Maya winces. “Brutal.”
I nod. “He wore it twice, complained it made him look ridiculous, then dumped it in the back of his closet like he was doing me a favor by owning it. I remember every inch of that thing.”
Ivy tilts her head. “So Nate the bad guy hurt Daddy.”
The word Daddy still makes my chest tighten in strange ways, but I nod. “Yes. I can’t prove the whole chain yet, but I know it was him. And if it was him, then Cindy is somewhere in the background, and Meredith is probably somewhere beside her holding a clipboard.”
Maya sits up straighter. “Okay. That I can work with.”
I rub both hands over my face and breathe through my nose. The plan is already building in pieces. It feels ugly but clean. Direct. “If I message Nate and tell him I know, he’ll panic. He doesn’t do anything alone when the consequences get real. He’ll run straight to his mother.”
Maya nods slowly. “And Cindy doesn’t let him improvise. She’ll want to contain it.”
“Exactly,” I say. “So I give him something to panic about, then while they scramble, I go sideways.”
Ivy raises her hand. Maya blinks. “Did you just?”
“She’s planning,” Ivy says, offended. “I have a question.”
I point at her with my spoon. “Proceed.”
“What does sideways mean.”
I lean back against the couch. “It means while Nate and Cindy are busy being evil together, I go looking for the weak brick in the wall.”
Ivy processes that with total seriousness. “And the weak brick is Meredith.”
Maya points at her. “This child is terrifying.”
“She gets it from me,” I say.
That earns me the first real smile of the night from Ivy, and I cling to it longer than I should.
I pull my phone out and open my messages. Nate’s contact is still buried under old threads I never deleted, mostly because every time I thought about doing it, I got angry and decided I preferred the evidence.
My thumbs hover for a second, then I type.
I know it was you who attacked Nathan.
I stare at the sentence once, make sure it says exactly what it needs to, then I send it.
Maya watches my face. “That’s it.”
“That’s enough,” I reply. “He’s a coward. He doesn’t need paragraphs. He needs one line that tells him the room is already on fire.”
Ivy squints. “You should also say he smells bad.”
Maya presses her lips together, trying not to laugh. I look at Ivy and nod slowly. “Strong note. Maybe later.”
My phone stays face down on the table. I don’t need to watch it. I know how this part works. Nate will read it, swear at the screen, then call Cindy. If Cindy doesn’t pick up, he’ll call again until she does. Then they’ll both start moving, and movement leaves traces.
I already know who I want for the second part.
David answers on the third ring.
“Athena,” he says, surprised and then immediately alert. “You okay.”
“Not remotely,” I reply. “I need a favor, and it’s ugly.”
That is enough to sharpen his voice. “Talk.”
I stand and walk toward the kitchenette, lowering my voice out of instinct even though there is no one here I’m hiding from.
“I need everything you can get on Meredith Carson. Hawthorne HR. Employment history, credentials, past complaints, external contacts, especially anything tying her to Cindy Clarke.”
David is quiet for a beat. “That’s not a casual favor.”
“I know.”
“Should I ask why?”
I shake my head though he can’t see me. “No.”
Another beat. Then, “Good. Saves time. I know a lieutenant in Boston PD and two people who do financial crimes work on the side for fun, which should alarm you more than it does.”
“It does, actually.”
He huffs something that almost sounds like a laugh. “Give me an hour. Maybe two.”
I close my eyes for a second. “David.”
“What.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t do that yet,” he says. “Wait till I bring you something useful.”
When I hang up, Maya is already looking at me like she wants to ask but won’t until I’m ready. I sink back onto the couch and finish the soup while Ivy starts drawing on the back of a paper placemat from dinner.
“What are you making?” I ask.
“A wanted poster,” she replies.
I glance over. It is, in fact, a wanted poster, except Nate has devil horns and extremely bad teeth. “Harsh,” I murmur.
“He earned it,” she says.
Maya mutters into her drink, “Again, terrifying.”
Time passes differently when you’re waiting for dirt. The room softens around us. The food disappears. Ivy starts leaning heavier into the couch, then into Maya, then into the plush side of the blanket.
By the time David calls back, I’ve got a raging headache. “I’ve got enough,” he says without preamble.
I nod. “That implies I’m currently in the market for joy.”
He snorts. “Meredith Carson’s graduate degree is fraudulent.”
I sit up. “How fraudulent.”
“Submitted under a real institution, real format, fake completion status. She enrolled in a one-year HR certification track fifteen years ago, dropped out before final review, then three years later she surfaced with a master’s she never earned and a polished work history that doesn’t line up cleanly. ”
Maya mouths, “Holy shit,” from across the couch.
Ivy frowns and hands her a jar. “Put a dollar in.”
Maya returns the frown and I gesture vaguely with my hand. “Do it, you used a bad word.”
While Maya groans and argues semantics with my kid, David keeps going. “Someone financed the cleanup. Tuition records, consulting fees, background placement, even a recommendation trail. The money links back to a shell company used by Cindy Clarke.”
My pulse picks up. “So Cindy manufactured her.”
“Close enough,” he says. “Meredith also has two sealed civil complaints tied to workplace intimidation at prior jobs. Both settled quietly. One complainant withdrew after a private cash transfer. Guess whose name shows up on the intermediary paperwork.”
“Cindy.”
“Gold star.”
I pace to the window, phone pressed tight to my ear. “Can I use this?”
“You can use enough to make Meredith understand she’s dealing with someone who knows where the floor is weak. Don’t wave actual documents around if you want to keep my sources friendly.”
“I won’t.”
He pauses. “Athena?”
“What.”
“If Meredith cracks, get whatever she gives you recorded or written down fast. People like that lie for sport once they start sinking.”
“I know.”
“Also,” he adds, “Cindy and Meredith exchanged personal emails off hospital systems for years. I couldn’t open all of them, but the pattern is ugly. Personal favors. Placement help. Language about ‘keeping things quiet.’”
That’s enough. When I hang up, Maya is staring at me with the kind of expression women wear right before a war.
“You’re going after her tonight,” she says.
“Tonight,” I confirm.
Ivy looks up from her drawing. “Can I come?”
“No.”
“Okay,” she says, unfazed, and goes back to adding fire behind Nate’s badly drawn body.
Meredith agrees to meet too quickly.
That tells me she’s scared before I even arrive. We meet at an expensive cafe with brass light fixtures, marble tables, and staff trained to speak softly and charge aggressively.
I get there first and take the corner banquette with the best line of sight to the door. When Meredith walks in, she spots me immediately and gives me the brittle smile of a woman who thinks composure still counts as power.
She sits without waiting to be invited. “I have very little time.”
I look her over slowly. Cream blouse, neat hair, a leather folder clutched like armor. “That’s fine,” I reply. “This won’t take long.”
Her eyes narrow. “You sounded urgent.”
“I was trying to be polite.”
That lands. She shifts slightly, and I let the silence stretch long enough to make her fill it.
“If this is about your resignation,” she says, “the paperwork is complete. There’s nothing to revisit.”
I fold my hands on the table. “I know you didn’t earn your degree.”
For the first time since she sat down, Meredith actually freezes.
I keep my voice soft, conversational. “I know the certification was incomplete, I know the master’s never happened, and I know Cindy paid to sand the rough edges off your résumé and drop you into Hawthorne like a polished little land mine. ”
Color drains out of her face in a visible wave. She recovers fast, but not fast enough. “That’s ridiculous.” The line would sound stronger if she hadn’t tightened her grip on the folder.
“Is it?” I ask. “Want me to walk you through the shell company. Or the consulting payments. Or the prior civil complaints you buried before you got yourself a badge and an office and started threatening women for sport.”
Her mouth parts. Closes. Opens again.
I lean in just slightly. “You tried to end my career with paperwork you weren’t qualified to file.”
She glances toward the room around us then back to me. Her voice drops. “Keep your voice down.”
I smile without warmth. “Why? Afraid someone will hear something true?”
Her shoulders go rigid. “What do you want?”
I sit back again, calm now that her fear is visible. “Everything you have on Cindy.”
Meredith laughs once, short and brittle. “You think I keep files on her.”
“I think women like you keep insurance on everyone. Especially the people who helped build you.”
She doesn’t deny it. Instead, she stares at the table for a second, and when she looks back up I can see the math happening behind her eyes. How much I know. How much more I might know. How quickly Hawthorne would cut her loose if this broke open cleanly.
“She’ll destroy me,” Meredith says quietly.
I hold her gaze. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have helped her destroy other women first.”
That gets through. Her hand slides to the folder then stops. “If I give you anything, you never say where you got it.”
I tilt my head. “Depends on what you give me.”
Her nostrils flare. She opens the folder.
Inside is a slim stack of printed emails, a flash drive in a plastic sleeve, and handwritten notes on legal pad paper. I don’t reach for any of it yet. It’s evident she knew she could be in trouble and she’s come prepared. Brave of her to still try to test the waters, though.
“Start talking,” I say.
Meredith wets her lips. “Cindy paid for more than my placement. She used me to bury two staff complaints, flag your name when it came up in internal scheduling discussions, and keep tabs on Nathan whenever she thought he was involved with someone inconvenient.”
My fingers curl under the table. “Me.”
“Yes,” she says, barely above a whisper. “You. Once she knew you’d entered in his orbit, she wanted updates.”
I stare at her. “How did she know?”
“Nate,” Meredith replies. “He told her after he saw you with Nathan.”
Meredith slides the flash drive toward me with one shaking finger. “There are emails. Payment records. Messages. Enough to implicate her in falsifying my credentials and interfering with internal staffing.”
“And Nate?” I ask.
Her expression shifts. “Less paper. More calls. More in-person mess. Cindy keeps him off writing when she can.”
That tracks too well. I finally reach out and take the flash drive. “What about the assault?”
Meredith’s face goes blank in a way that tells me she knows something but not everything. “I wasn’t told details,” she says carefully. “Only that Cindy wanted Nathan distracted and frightened enough to stop making plans around you.”
That’s enough to make my hands go cold.
I stand. Meredith looks up sharply. “That’s it.”
“For now,” I say.
Her breath catches. “Athena.”
I pause.
“If Cindy realizes I talked, she’ll come for me.”
I turn back toward her, and I almost feel sorry for her. Then I remember my resignation paperwork, the escort, the way she looked at me like I was disposable. “You should’ve thought of that before you sold your spine,” I say, and I walk out.
I make it halfway down the block before my phone vibrates.
Nate. I stop under a streetlamp and open the message.
Nate: Meet me.
No hello. No denial. No attempt at charm.
I type back with steady thumbs.
Athena: Location?
The reply comes instantly, like he’s been standing there waiting for me to confirm I’m still willing to enter the ring.
Nate: The Armoire Warehouse, tomorrow evening, 7 p.m. Come alone.
I look at the screen for a long second, then I slip the phone into my pocket and keep walking.
Good. Let him think he still gets to summon me.