3: 3
Carol Whitney was, plain and simple, insane.
The next morning, at ten, I was getting ready for a department meeting when the security desk downstairs suddenly called up.
"Ms. Dickerson, you'd better come down. Your family's making a scene in the lobby!"
My stomach dropped, and I bolted out of the elevator.
Someone had strung up a bright banner across the lobby:
【Katherine Dickerson has no conscience! She abuses her own nephew and forces a little boy to beg on the street!】
Carol Whitney sat on the floor in a filthy set of clothes, bawling at the top of her lungs.
"All you managers and coworkers, be the judge! My sister-in-law here makes hundreds of thousands a year, and she won't even feed my son a full meal! She forces a six-year-old to carry a beat-up bowl out onto the main road to beg!"
Dylan played his part perfectly, rolling wildly across the marble floor, shrieking:
"I want food! Auntie hits me! Auntie makes me beg!"
The whole company's staff, visiting clients, packed in three deep around them, sealing them off completely.
The muttering and finger-pointing rolled toward me like a tide.
The moment she saw me, Carol didn't shrink back. She lunged and grabbed a fistful of my clothes.
"You poisonous witch! You finally dare show your face! You pay for the trauma you did to my son!"
I shoved her off, hard.
Under the doubting stares of my coworkers, I pulled out my phone and cued up the recording from the hotel yesterday.
"Carol, you're the one who taught your kid to kowtow for money, then told him the money meant his elders loved him. And now you come here playing the victim? Should I pull up yesterday's footage of you slapping him across the face and show everyone that too?"
The recording played, and the muttering around us flipped in an instant. Carol's face went red, then white.
But she was the kind who felt no shame, dead pig unbothered by boiling water. She just flopped straight down on the floor and kept up the tantrum:
"I don't care! You forced my son to beg! You give me a hundred thousand today, or I'll die right here in your company!"
The police officers came fast and hauled Carol and Dylan off.
But the damage was done.
At noon, the HR director called me into her office, her expression pained.
"Katherine, the company values what you can do. But a family mess like this has done real damage to our reputation, and the boss is furious. You're suspended for two weeks. Go home, sort out your family situation, and we'll talk."
No matter how I explained, the suspension notice went out anyway.
I dragged my worn-out body back to the apartment, wanting nothing more than to fall into bed.
But when I pressed my finger to the smart lock, out came a cold, mechanical voice:
"Fingerprint incorrect."
I figured the system had glitched and keyed in the code.
"Code incorrect."
I froze, tried it three or four times, but the handle stayed jammed tight and wouldn't budge.
No one knew the code to this place except me and my mother.
Back then my mother had held my hand, her face full of tenderness.
"Katherine, working alone all day is hard on you. Give me the code, and when I have time I'll come clean up, cook you a hot meal."
I believed her.
I handed the code to my security door over, holding nothing back, to the mother I trusted most.
And now she'd handed that code to those bloodsuckers, and locked me, her own daughter, out of the home I'd paid for in full!
The cold of being betrayed by my own family stabbed into my chest like a knife, and it hurt so much I was shaking.
I didn't even have the strength to confront them.
I went straight down to the property office, showed my deed and my ID, and called in the registered locksmith service.
The drill ground straight through the new lock cylinder, and I threw the door open.
But the instant it swung wide, the scene inside sent my blood running backward and my eyes near splitting with rage.
