Chapter 4 - The Ashworth Net
The scent of rubbing alcohol didn’t cover up the lingering smell of poverty that Nora had carried into Room 4.
When I slid the curtain back, she was sitting up on the examination table. The IV was still taped to the back of her left hand, but the color was beginning to return to her lips. She had washed her face with cold water; her hair was pulled back into a messy knot, damp at the temples.
In the bassinet beside her, Leo and Clara were sleeping side by side, their bellies full, swaddled in standard-issue pink and blue hospital blankets.
Nora looked up as I stepped into the cubicle. Her eyes dropped immediately to the thick yellow envelope clutched in my right hand.
"What is that?" she asked, her voice steady now, though still tight with wariness.
"It's the truth," I said.
I didn't step closer. I stayed three feet back, respecting the space she clearly needed. I set the envelope down on the edge of the rolling metal tray table between us.
"I don't need to read Caldwell's lies again, Dean," she said coldly, turning her head toward her babies. "I lived through them. I don't need to see the photos of me meeting Dr. Miller turned into a cheap motel fantasy."
My chest seized. "You knew? You knew the photos were of Dr. Miller?"
"Of course I knew!" Nora's voice cracked, a spark of fire finally breaking through her exhaustion. "I was there! When you threw those blurred pictures at my feet on Sycamore Lane, I looked at you and I thought, *How could he not recognize Dr. Miller? We sat in that man’s office for two years.* But you were so blind with rage, so eager to believe whatever Camille whispered in your ear, you didn't even look at the details. You wanted an exit, Dean. Camille offered you a high-society pedigree and twenty million dollars for your skyscraper, and you took the bait."
"I didn't want an exit, Nora," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "I was an idiot. I was a blind, arrogant fool who was terrified of failing."
"Well," she said, looking down at her rough, blistered hands, "you succeeded at that."
Before I could answer, my phone buzzed violently in my pocket.
It wasn't a call. It was a series of automated alerts from my bank’s commercial portal:
> **ALERT:** *Vance Construction Operating Account #4091 has been FROZEN pending commercial audit by Ashworth Capital Partners.*
>
> **ALERT:** *Line of Credit #1102 suspended by lender.*
>
> **ALERT:** *Payroll disbursement for 48 employees scheduled for 08/15 has been flagged for insufficient backing.*
Camille wasn't bluffing. Julian Ashworth had pulled the trigger within twenty minutes of our phone call.
I stared at the screen. Forty-eight men and women—framers, crane operators, ironworkers who had worked for my father before they worked for me—were about to have their paychecks bounce in seventy-two hours. The tower downtown, three-quarters framed in steel, would sit idle under a court injunction.
"Dean?"
Nora was watching my face. Even after fourteen months of hell, she could still read the tension in my jaw.
"Julian Ashworth just froze my accounts," I said simply. "All of them. Operating, payroll, equipment leasing."
Nora didn't gasp. She didn't look triumphant. She just let out a long, quiet sigh, her shoulders slumping back against the thin hospital pillow.
"Then you should go," she said. "Go back to them. Beg for his forgiveness. Tell him it was a momentary lapse. If you lose the company, Dean, you won't survive it. That company is who you are."
"No," I said.
She frowned. "No?"
"That company is steel and dirt," I said, walking toward her bed until my knees touched the frame. "I spent the last year thinking that building downtown was going to prove I was worthy of the name on the side of the truck. But looking at you on that highway... looking at these two babies..."
I reached down. This time, Nora didn't flinch away. I gently brushed my knuckle against Leo’s soft, warm cheek. The boy made a tiny snuffling sound and rooted his head into the fleece blanket.
"I don't give a damn about the tower, Nora," I said, meeting her eyes. "Let Julian Ashworth take the steel. He can have every girder. But he’s not taking my family. Not anymore."
"We aren't your family, Dean," she whispered, though her eyes were shining with unshed tears. "You can't just buy a ticket back into this life after what you did. We live in an efficiency apartment over an auto-body shop on North Broadway. The air conditioner broke in June. I wash their cloth diapers in the bathtub because the laundromat costs three dollars a load. You don't know what our life is."
"Then show me," I said.
The doctor walked into the cubicle before she could respond, holding Nora’s discharge papers.
"Her fluids look good, Mr. Vance," Dr. Chen said, glancing between us with a knowing, no-nonsense look. "Her blood pressure is back up to normal. But she cannot be out in this heat again today. She needs seventy-two hours of absolute rest, high protein, and hydration. If she goes back out on the road, she's going to end up in the ICU with heat stroke."
"She won't be going back out," I said firmly.
Dr. Chen nodded, signed the clipboard, and unhooked Nora’s IV line. "You're free to go, Mrs. Vance."
*Mrs. Vance.* The name hung in the sterile air between us like a ghost.
Twenty minutes later, I carried the twins out through the clinic lobby in their infant carriers, which the clinic staff had helped me buckle into the back seat of the Escalade. Nora walked beside me, leaning slightly on my arm for balance. She tried to pull away twice, her stubborn Kentucky pride refusing to accept help, but her legs were still shaking, and eventually, she let me support her weight.
When we reached the truck, I opened the passenger door, helped her climb into the leather seat, and handed her a cold bottle of water from the center console.
"Where to?" I asked, climbing behind the wheel.
Nora looked out the window, avoiding my gaze.
May you like
"North Broadway," she said softly. "Behind Miller’s Transmission. Number 4B."
***
