The day after the cease-and-desist letter went out, Whitmore Group's brand division ground to a halt. The board ordered all live materials suspended pending a review of authorship credit.
Jade called me more than a dozen times. I didn't answer once.
At noon, she came to my mother's old house herself.
I was sorting through my mother's belongings when she knocked. I opened the door and found her standing outside, eyes red in exactly the right measure. "Ellie, can we talk?"
I didn't invite her in. "Say what you need to say here."
She glanced past me into the room. "Do you really have to take this all the way?"
"Coming from someone who stole," I said, "that's not a question you get to ask."
The softness on her face thinned a little. "What proof do you have that I stole anything?"
I loo
