Chapter 10: What Richard Did Next
He didn't go quiet.
Emily had expected a period of silence — lawyers communicating with lawyers, papers exchanged, the slow machinery of a legal process beginning to turn.
What she had not expected was Richard Harwell to appear at her school.
She was walking to her car on a Friday afternoon when she saw him standing near the gate.
He looked older than she remembered from photographs.
Heavier.
His suit was expensive and his expression was composed, but there was something in his posture that hadn't been there in the boardroom photographs — a tension, a watchfulness.
"Emily," he said.
She stopped.
She kept her distance.
"You shouldn't be here," she said.
"I know.
I needed to speak with you directly."
"You have a solicitor.
So do I.
That's how we speak now."
"Please." He said it with an effort, as if the word didn't come easily.
"Five minutes."
She looked at him.
The man who had followed her to the boathouse when she was seventeen.
The man who had let his sister destroy her life to protect his.
The man who had called Margaret and thought no one would know.
She didn't move closer.
"Say what you came to say."
"I'm prepared to make a full statement," he said.
"To your solicitor.
About what happened that night."
Emily didn't respond.
"Not — not a denial," he said.
"A full account.
What I did.
What I asked Diane to do afterward.
All of it." His jaw tightened.
"In exchange, I'm asking you to consider a private resolution rather than a public proceeding."
"You're asking me to keep it quiet."
"I'm asking you to consider it.
There are people—"
"Don't," she said.
"Don't use your employees again.
I've heard that."
He was quiet.
"Why now?" Emily said.
"Why a full statement now?"
He looked at the ground briefly.
"Because Margaret's recording is going to come out regardless.
And because—" He stopped.
"Because?"
He looked at her.
"Because Diane told me what your father wrote.
In the letter." He paused.
"I didn't know about the investigator.
I didn't know she'd done that."
Emily studied his face.
"I believed she'd only written the letters," he said.
"I knew that was wrong.
I've known for thirty years that it was wrong.
But I told myself it was her choice, her action." He stopped again.
"I didn't know she'd paid someone to make sure he couldn't find you."
"Does it change what you did?"
"No," he said.
"It doesn't."
The school gate was quiet.
The last of the students had gone.
"A full statement," Emily said.
"Every detail.
Signed.
Witnessed.
Filed with my solicitor."
"Yes."
"And Diane's actions — the letters, the investigator, the interference with Margaret — you confirm all of it, in writing, as part of the same statement."
He nodded.
"Then speak to Frances Okafor," Emily said.
"Her number is on the court filing.
Don't come to my school again."
She walked to her car.
May you like
She didn't look back.
But her hands were not entirely steady on the keys.
