And if it made me look vindictive or cruel or unforgiving, so be it. At least I could look at myself in the mirror and know I'd told the truth. At least I could live with who I was becoming. At least I could sleep at night. That had to be worth something.
Wednesday morning arrived cold and bright, the kind of November day that makes everything look crisp and unforgiving. I dressed in my best suit, the charcoal one I'd worn to job interviews and funerals, occasions that required gravidos, and drove to Cascade Tech headquarters downtown. The building was all glass and steel, aggressively modern, the kind of place that probably had a meditation room and kombucha on tap. I'd been here before to company parties where Rachel had introduced me to colleagues whose names I forgot immediately, where Marcus had shaken my hand and smiled and looked me in the eye while planning to betray me. Security directed me to the 14th floor.
Jennifer Ward's office overlooked the city floor to ceiling windows that made everything feel exposed. She stood when I entered. Mid-40s professional suit, the kind of face that gave nothing away. Mr. Rostine, thank you for coming.
She gestured to a chair across from her desk. Can I get you anything? Coffee? Water? I'm fine, thank you.
She sat, folded her hands on the desk between us, and got straight to it. I'll be direct. We've received reports of an inappropriate relationship between two of our employees. Based on the information we've gathered so far, your name has come up as someone who might have relevant knowledge. Before we proceed, I need to clarify.
You are under no legal obligation to speak with me. This is entirely voluntary. I understand. And anything you tell me will be used in our internal investigation and could result in disciplinary action against the employees involved. Are you comfortable with that?
I thought about Rachel, about the job she'd worked so hard for, the career she'd built. Thought about what losing it would mean for her, for her future, for whatever life she was planning with Marcus. Then I thought about the lies, the betrayal, the year of fake fertility treatments, the two weeks in the Bahamas paid for with our savings. I'm comfortable with that, I said. Jennifer pulled out a legal pad.
Walk me through what you know. I did. I told her about discovering the affair, about the phone records and text messages, about the Bahamas trip that Rachel had claimed was a work conference. I told her about Marcus, about how long they'd been colleagues, about the progression from friendship to something more. Do you have documentation?
Jennifer asked. I pulled out a flash drive I'd prepared specifically for this meeting. This contains phone records, text messages, credit card receipts, hotel reservations, and security camera footage from your parking garage showing Rachel and Marcus leaving together on multiple occasions when they both supposedly worked late. She took the drive, turned it over in her hands. Security camera footage.
How did you obtain that? I didn't. A friend who works in building security did. He's prepared to testify if necessary. That was a lie.
I paid a security contractor $200 to pull the footage, and he'd made it very clear he wouldn't testify to anything. But Jennifer didn't need to know that. This is She plugged in the drive, opened the files, her face remaining professionally neutral as she scanned through evidence. This is quite thorough. I had a lot of time to be thorough.
She looked up from the screen. Mr. Rothstein, I need to ask you something directly. What's your goal here? Are you seeking revenge against your wife and her against these employees?
Or are you genuinely concerned about company policy violations? I considered the question. The honest answer was complicated. It was both revenge and principle, hurt, injustice, personal pain, and legitimate concern about workplace ethics. My wife had an affair, I said slowly.
That's personal and it's painful, and yes, I'm angry about it. But she also used company resources to conduct that affair. She claimed work trips that were actually vacations. She used office time for personal communications. She and Marcus created a situation where their colleagues had to cover for them, had to lie about their whereabouts, had to be complicit in something that violated your company's ethics policy.
I leaned forward. So yes, this is personal, but it's also a legitimate workplace issue. And I think your other employees deserve to work in an environment where people follow the rules, where married colleagues don't use company time and resources to conduct affairs, where professional boundaries actually mean something. Jennifer studied me for a long moment. You're very articulate for someone in your situation.
I've had time to think about how to articulate it. She turned back to her computer, clicked through more files. This footage from the parking garage. When was this taken? Multiple dates from July through October.
The timestamps are in the file names. And these hotel receipts, they show charges to Marcus Chen's personal credit card, but some of them are from afternoons when both employees were supposedly at client meetings. Yes. Did you verify with the clients whether those meetings actually happened? No.
That felt like overstepping, but I'm sure your records show whether they build those hours as client work. She made a note on her legal pad. They did. We've already pulled their time sheets. Something in her tone told me Rachel and Marcus were in deeper trouble than they knew.
Billing personal time as client work wasn't just an ethics violation. It was fraud. Is there anything else you can tell me that might be relevant to our investigation? I thought about the birth control deception, about the fertility treatments, about all the personal betrayals that had nothing to do with Cascade Text policies. No, everything else is private between Rachel and me.
I appreciate your discretion. She ejected the flash drive, slid it back across the desk. Keep this. We've copied everything we need. And Mr.