Tessa lived in a small apartment over a laundromat in Bellweather. She let me sleep on her couch and gave me the warmer half of the blanket without asking me to explain why I had left.
I told her the next morning.
"Did you keep copies?" she asked.
"Of everything I could."
"That was smart."
"It was necessary."
She set a mug of tea in front of me. "Are you going to report them?"
"I don't know."
"You know they owe you money."
"I know the records show deductions. I don't know where the money went."
"That's what a report is for."
The greenhouse had been my life for four years. If I filed a complaint, I might never work there again. If I stayed quiet, the people who controlled the estate could make it look as if I had left because I couldn't handle my job.
I carried the pay records t
