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After Kindly Donating Ten Thousand, Sick Coworker Complained, I Jailed Her
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The company set up an anonymous fundraiser for Alison, a coworker who was seriously ill, and I sent over ten grand without thinking twice. Then, as I was leaving work, Alison and her family of three h...
章節（4）
第1章
The company set up an anonymous fundraiser for Alison Lambert, a seriously ill coworker, and I casually transferred ten thousand.
Then I clocked out, and Alison's family of three had my car boxed in down in the underground parking garage.
Her face was flushed and healthy, not a trace of sickness on her, and yet she thrust a slip of paper at me.
"Cordelia Fox, the back end shows you're the one who donated ten thousand, so clearly you've got money."
"I'm still twenty thousand short for my treatment. You make up the difference."
I laughed out of sheer disbelief.
"I donated anonymously out of goodwill. What gives you the right to demand another twenty thousand from me?"
Alison's mother-in-law rolled her eyes, then flopped down against the front of my car and started wailing and thrashing.
"There's no justice in this world! Rich enough for a fancy car, but she'll let a person die!"
"If you don't hand over twenty thousand today, these old bones of mine will die right here in front of your car!"
Watching the two of them slip so smoothly into the staged-accident routine, it hit me. They were using moral blackmail as extortion.
As the company's senior legal counsel of ten years, I was about to open my mouth and lay out some law and ethics.
Alison's husband, a huge man, saw I wasn't reaching for my wallet, and with that beefy, thuggish face he charged at me, hand already grabbing for my bag.
I stepped aside and dodged.
They probably had no idea that besides being the company's legal counsel, I was also a taekwondo black belt.
If they didn't want to listen to reason, well, I knew a thing or two about throwing hands too.
...
Bertram Chavez stood over six feet, all beefy muscle and thug's face.
Counting on his size, he swung a hand straight at my handbag.
I turned aside, my left hand shooting out to block his forearm.
Bertram froze, not expecting me to fight back.
While he was stunned, my right hand clamped his wrist, and driving from the waist I wrenched it sharply downward.
Bertram screamed, all resistance gone, his whole body dropping helplessly.
I followed through, lifting my right foot and driving my toe hard into the back of his knee.
The six-foot brute's knees slammed into the concrete, the pain bringing out a cold sweat.
I looked down at him, my grip not loosening an inch. If anything, I bore down harder.
"Robbery? Or snatching?"
"The cameras down here have full three-sixty coverage, no blind spots."
Bertram was shaking all over from the pain, his other hand slapping frantically at the ground, but his mouth stayed filthy.
"Let go! You're going to break it! You cheap slut, you dare hit me!"
Seeing this, Alison dropped the frail act and scrambled up off the ground.
She came at me clawing and shrieking, nails aimed straight at my face.
"Cordelia, have you lost your mind!"
"My husband spoke to you nice and civil, and you have the nerve to hit people!"
Watching Alison charge, I let out a cold laugh.
I flung Bertram off and used the momentum to swing my right leg into a side kick.
The heel of my shoe grazed the tip of Alison's nose and slammed hard into the pillar behind her.
Alison screamed in terror, her legs buckling as she dropped to the ground, then scrambled back several yards on all fours.
I fished my phone out of my bag, opened the camera, and pointed it at the couple.
"Nice and civil? He grabbed straight for my bag. You call that nice and civil?"
"Under Article 267 of the Criminal Code, snatching public or private property in a relatively large amount is punishable by up to three years in prison."
"This bag is worth three hundred thousand. Add the cash and documents inside, and it's more than enough to send him in to work a sewing machine for a few years."
The moment she heard three hundred thousand, Alison's whole face changed.
The tears came on cue, and sitting there on the ground she launched into the moral blackmail.
"Cordelia, you learn a few cheap tricks and now you're bullying people!"
"You've got a three-hundred-thousand bag, so why can't you help your big sister out?"
"We've worked together at the company for five years. You can pull ten thousand out of thin air, so twenty thousand is nothing to you."
"Just think of it as lending it to your big sister. I swear I'll pay you back, all right?"
I looked down at her.
"Lend? Pay it back with what?"
"The way you just lunged over to claw my face, a college sprinter would be ashamed. What part of that looks like terminal cancer?"
"The back-end records for anonymous donations are confidential company information. How exactly did you get hold of them?"
My three questions in a row left Alison choking on her words, and the mother-in-law sprawled on the hood immediately jumped in.
The old woman rolled around on the ground, wringing her clothes into a ruined mess as she threw her fit.
"Murder! The rich one knows martial arts, beating up honest folk!"
"Won't give money, fine, but she hits my son! Kicks my daughter-in-law!"
"My heart condition's going to give out! If you don't cough up half a million today, I'll die right under your car!"
The number had jumped from twenty thousand to five hundred thousand. I watched this cheap little performance.
"Fine."
I walked to the front of the car and rolled my wrist loose.
"Staged accident, extortion of property, sum reaching five hundred thousand."
"Under Article 274 of the Criminal Code, that's suspected extortion."
"These old bones of yours won't just die under a car. They may end up dying in prison."
The old woman cut off her crying at once.
Bertram rubbed his bruised wrist and climbed up off the ground, glanced at my leg, and didn't dare come any closer.
"Don't try to scare people with the law!"
"My wife has cancer! Terminal!"
"You've got that much money, so what's wrong with making you donate a little? It's a good deed!"
He snarled through gritted teeth.
"If you don't pay up today, believe me, I'll make sure you can't show your face in this building ever again!"
I looked at him with disgust.
"Terminal cancer, is it? Then where are the medical records? Where's the diagnosis?"
I opened my hands.
"Show them to me, and I'll transfer the money right now."
第2章
The shouting in the garage drew a crowd of coworkers heading home, and the security guards too.
The moment Alison saw the crowd swelling, she lunged at me, arms flung wide, trying to wrap them around my legs.
I didn't let her touch me. Just as she was about to grab hold, I drove my right knee up.
It caught her in the shoulder, and she let out a sharp cry.
Her body pitched backward, and she went sprawling half a meter away, flat on the ground.
Even then she kept wailing, tears and snot running down her face.
"I know you're rich. You drive a Porsche, you carry a Hermès bag. Just the scraps slipping through your fingers could save my life!"
"My daughter's only three. She can't grow up without a mother!"
Murmurs rippled through the crowd.
"Isn't that the gorgeous Ms. Fox from Legal? Those moves just now were unreal."
"Poor Alison, though. Terminal illness, and this one won't even give her money, just knocks her down. Isn't that a bit much?"
"Well, she's rich. Trained in taekwondo, too. People like us can't afford to cross her."
Resentment against the rich was an easy fire to light.
Seeing the mood tip his way, Bertram found his nerve. He pulled out a sheet of paper and held it high.
"Everybody, look! This is my wife's medical report!"
"It says right here, in black and white. Terminal stomach cancer!"
"Cordelia, you're a woman yourself. How can you be this heartless?"
Emboldened by the crowd, Bertram took a step forward and shoved the paper at my face.
My left hand closed around his wrist.
He flinched back, and my right hand slid the paper away from him.
My left hand pushed him off in the same motion, and I held the report up to the camera.
"A tumor screening report from the city hospital?"
"Carcinoembryonic antigen, normal."
"Alpha-fetoprotein, normal."
I lifted my head and looked around at my coworkers.
"Everyone, if I'm not mistaken, with terminal stomach cancer, these two markers would be off the charts, several times over."
"And the only thing abnormal on this sheet is right down here. Severe fatty liver and overnutrition."
The onlookers went quiet. Alison's face froze, and she rushed forward to snatch the report back.
"You're lying! You're not even a doctor. What do you know!"
I tossed the report up into the air.
Alison threw herself after it and slammed hard onto the ground.
"I'm not a doctor, no. But I know common sense, and I know how to spot a forgery."
I looked down at Alison scrambling on the floor.
"The official seal on this report has blurred edges, and the spacing between the characters is wrong. It's obviously one of those fifty-dollar fake stamps carved at some corner print shop."
"Forging the seal of a state agency or public institution. Well, Alison, that's one more charge to add to the list."
Alison came apart completely.
His scam exposed, Bertram flew into a rage and cast around for a weapon.
He grabbed a dry-powder fire extinguisher from the corner of the garage and swung it down onto my Porsche.
The door caved into a deep dent, paint splintering, and the crowd cried out and scrambled back.
The guards waved their hands in a panic.
"Don't, don't! That car's worth a few million!"
Bertram hoisted the extinguisher again and brought it down on the hood, cursing at me between swings.
"So you know martial arts! So you like showing off! So you like quoting the law!"
"Can't beat you in a fight, but I can sure as hell wreck your car! Today I'm turning this piece of junk into scrap!"
He hammered it three times. The hood buckled badly, and cracks spiderwebbed across the windshield.
Off to the side, the old woman clapped and cheered.
"Smash it! Smash the poisonous witch dead!"
I didn't move to stop him. I just held up my phone, filming, and looked at the crumpled front end with a cold smile.
"Bertram, do you know how they assess damage on a fully insured, custom-spec Porsche Panamera?"
He stopped and glared at me.
"Based on what you just did, the door, the hood, the front windshield all need factory replacements."
"Rough estimate, repairs over four hundred thousand."
"Willful destruction of public and private property, a large sum. That starts at three to seven years in prison."
第3章
At the word "four hundred grand," the fire extinguisher slipped out of Bertram's hands and clattered to the ground.
The number sent a shiver through him, and his knees went weak under him.
Alison's face changed color, then just as fast she pulled herself together and dug in.
"Four hundred grand, my ass! Quit lying!"
"A few busted sheets of metal—any body shop fixes that for a couple thousand!"
Then she lunged, grabbing for my phone, even clawing at my face.
"Shut that piece-of-junk phone off! Recording me, are you!"
This time I didn't dodge. My right hand closed on her wrist and twisted it up behind her back.
Alison shrieked. I pressed a hand to the back of her neck and pushed her face down onto the wrecked hood.
Tears sprang to her eyes from the pain, half her body limp and useless, unable to move.
"Still want to grab it?" I asked, cold.
The old woman panicked at the sight and came at me, screaming, both arms flailing.
"Let go of my daughter-in-law! You murdering little bitch!"
I released Alison and stepped aside. The old woman couldn't stop herself and was about to crash right into me.
I caught her wrist, sent her forward with the momentum, and hooked a foot in front of hers.
She lost her balance and dropped hard onto her backside. Something wrapped in red cloth flew out of her pocket.
It hit the concrete and broke into pieces—a shattered green jade pendant inside.
The old woman froze for a beat, then instantly rolled onto the ground, clutching her chest and wailing.
"Oh, my dear God!"
"She hit me! This vicious woman who knows kung fu shoved me down!"
She pointed at the broken jade on the floor and sobbed.
"My family heirloom! That's imperial-green jade from the Qing dynasty!"
"Someone once offered me two million for it and I wouldn't sell!"
"Today you're not just letting us go—you're paying me two million! Or I'll die right here in front of you!"
The extortion figure had shot up to two million, and every coworker standing around was dumbstruck.
Someone quietly took out a phone and started filming.
Bertram caught on at once. From a few yards back he pointed at me and let loose.
"Cordelia Fox! Not only won't you donate, you go and beat up an old woman and smash our family heirloom!"
"This isn't over! You're fixing your own car and paying us two million!"
Alison rubbed her arm and climbed up off the ground.
"That's right! Everyone saw it—she used a dirty trick to shove an old lady!"
I looked at the pendant lying under the garage lights, giving off a plasticky sheen.
"Two million?"
I couldn't help it—I laughed out loud.
"This resin plastic trinket, the kind they sell three-for-ten at a street stall, and you've got the nerve to ask two million?"
"Ma'am, the threshold for 'especially large amounts' under the fraud statute is five hundred thousand."
"You open your mouth and it's two million. You're dead set on marching your whole family off to prison."
At that the old woman sat bolt upright.
"Bullshit! This is the real thing! I say it's real, so it's real!"
Bertram shouted across the distance.
"Don't think you can say whatever you want just because you can fight!"
"All we have to do is swear it was you, and if you don't want trouble you'll hand over the money like a good girl!"
I shook my head and pointed at the cameras built into the Porsche's body.
"You people don't just not understand the law—you don't understand technology either."
"This is surveillance mode."
"From the second you got near this car, the four cameras—front, back, left, right—have been uploading your every move to the cloud, full coverage, no blind spots. That includes the old lady losing her footing on her own and flinging out a plastic trinket."
I gave the phone in my hand a little shake.
"Also, I just hit the shortcut. The police are already on their way."
At the word police, the whole family's faces turned ugly.
Bertram whipped his head around to look at Alison, frantic.
"Honey, what do we do?"
Alison stared at me, teeth clenched.
"What's there to be scared of! My cousin is the company's HR director!"
"Cordelia Fox is just some hired hand. Even if the cops show up today, I'm going to skin her alive!"
第4章
The wail of a siren cut through the parking garage entrance.
Two officers strode in and pushed through the ring of onlookers.
"Who called this in? What's going on here?"
I slipped my phone away and stepped forward.
"Officers, I called. It was me."
"These three are suspected of forging medical records for fraud, extortion, and violently vandalizing my car. On top of that, they tried to run a staged-accident scam for two million."
One officer glanced at the wrecked Porsche and frowned.
"Who smashed this car?"
Bertram shrank back. The old woman went quiet too.
But Alison found her nerve and jabbed a finger at me, flipping the whole thing around.
"Officers, don't listen to her nonsense! She's trained in martial arts and thinks her money lets her beat up my whole family!"
Right as she said it, the elevator doors opened.
A paunchy middle-aged man in a suit came hurrying out.
It was our company's HR director, Jude Whitney.
The second Alison saw him, she flung herself at him.
"Cousin! You finally came!"
"This Cordelia Fox is bullying us! She won't donate, she hits us, and now she's even called the police. She's trying to drive me to my death!"
Jude patted Alison on the shoulder, then walked up to me with his belly out in front of him.
He stared me down, cleared his throat twice, and put on his airs.
"Cordelia. This is where you're in the wrong."
"Alison's gravely ill. The company encourages everyone to help each other out. You're a senior employee—what's the harm in donating two hundred grand?"
I looked at him.
"Director Whitney, she isn't sick. The records are forged."
His face darkened, and he jabbed his index finger toward my forehead.
"Enough of this! I reviewed those records myself. There's no way they're fake!"
My eyes went cold. Before his finger touched me, I caught it and bent it down.
Jude couldn't take the pain and let out a howl, his body arching against his will.
Cold sweat soaked through the back of his shirt. I let go, took out a wet wipe, cleaned my fingers, and dropped it on the ground.
"If you want to talk, talk. Keep your hands to yourself."
Jude cupped his flaming red finger, shaking all over from the pain, and pointed at me, cursing.
"Cordelia! You dare hit a superior! You've completely lost your mind!"
"As HR director, I'm ordering you right now!"
"Apologize to Alison immediately, and compensate her family for every loss!"
He lowered his voice.
"If you don't, tomorrow you pack up and get out. And I'll put the word out across the industry, so you're finished in the legal world for good."
Alison lifted her chin from the side.
"You hear that, Cordelia? Cough up the money, now!"
The old woman pointed right at my nose and shrieked too.
"Two hundred grand today, plus damages for emotional distress, and you're getting down on your knees and kowtowing to apologize!"
The officer had heard enough and stepped forward, putting himself between us.
"This is an active investigation. Don't throw your position around!"
"Both sides come back to the station with us. The car goes for damage assessment, and that pendant goes to a professional lab for appraisal."
But Jude fished a cigarette out of his pocket and tried to hand it to the officer.
"Officer, it's a misunderstanding, just an internal company matter, no need to make it complicated."
"This girl doesn't know any better. I'll set her straight, that's all."
He turned and glared at me.
"Cordelia! What are you still standing there for? Pay up and drop the case, now!"
"Who do you think you are? You actually think you're somebody?"
I looked at the three of them and Jude, and let out a cold laugh.
"Who am I?"
I took a plain black encrypted phone out of my bag and pressed a button.
Over Bluetooth, the projection screen in the garage instantly linked to the highest-access backend of the group's finance system.
"Did you forget the company's mutual-aid fund this time got wired straight into a personal account?"
Every transaction was laid out plainly on the screen.
Not just the employee donations, but the five hundred grand in special funds released by the foundation—all of it flowing into a joint account held by Jude and Alison.
The cigarette dropped from Jude's hand. His face went white, and he no longer cared about the pain in his fingers.
"You… how could you have the password to the top-access backend?!"
I ignored him, dialed a number, and put it on speaker.
The voice of the group's chairman came through.
"Ms. Fox, how can I help you?"
I looked at the four stunned people in front of me, my voice echoing through the garage.
"Chairman Finch, bring the audit team down to the garage."
"There's a parasite down here. He teamed up with relatives to swindle over a million from the company fund, and now he wants me blacklisted across the whole industry."
"As the group's largest hidden shareholder, don't you think it's time I stepped aside and made way for better people?"