Doreen turned to Alex and pointed an accusing finger. "It's all on you! Ever since you've arrived at the company, nothing has been the same!" She was shaking with fury. "You just want to blame all the company's problems on Julie! Shame on you! Well, my Julie is not going to take the blame for this. Our family is hard-working and honest. She could never do something like this. How dare you slander her this way!"
She wiped her tears on her apron.
"I don't want these things to be true, either," Alex said, remaining calm. "But they are. Ask Julie about it. She stole the secret recipe during a big fire. Did she tell you about the fire? It was in the research and development building, and it just happened to be the day when Julie's sister came to the factory. Julie took advantage of the fire to sneak into the office and steal the formula, knowing the fire would destroy all traces."
He shook his head. "And after that, she arranged to change her role in the company and join the R&D cleaning crew, so she could get access to learn our manufacturing secrets. Someone must have offered her a lot of money, or she wouldn't have done it."
He tried to tone down his voice and spoke gently, "Doreen, Julie is your daughter, so it's right for you to defend her, but don't try to erase the facts. Everything will come to light, eventually."
"No, you're lying!" Doreen said, beginning to sob. "My daughter wouldn't do that! She's not that kind of person!"
Maryann was torn. "Alex, could we be making a mistake? This is so cruel to Doreen."
Alex shook his head and said, "I know this is hard to believe, but it's not impossible. Money can buy anything. Here, look at this." He handed her his cell phone.
Fabian had just sent Alex a message saying he had found out that Julie's bank account balance was inexplicably over a million dollars, and the date of the transfer was just after the fire.
Maryann handed the phone back to him without showing Doreen. She sighed and said quietly to Alex, "With that amount of money, she had to have been paid off by somebody, and I'm guessing it was Riley."
Alex lowered his voice and said, "Fabian also said that Julie has been declared missing. All the places she normally goes have been searched."
Now Maryann was getting worried. "Maybe she left town? Or even fled the country? But why didn't she take the money with her?"
Doreen moved closer. "Don't talk nonsense. I won't hear you talk about her like that. Julie is a good person, and she wouldn't do this. She's loyal to you, and she worries about you all the time. There's no way she could do something like this."
"Anything is possible, Doreen. I mean anything," Alex said softly. He looked down and became silent.
They all stood there quietly for a moment, each dealing with the news and their emotions in their own ways.
I guess money really is the root of all evil, Alex thought. How many friendships, and even families, has it destroyed?
He cared nothing about money and regarded it only as a means to an end. He didn't hate Julie for what she had done, but he wanted to bring down the man behind it all.
Maryann was fighting tears. She knew her failure to guard the formula had led to all of this.
Doreen was consumed with worry about her daughter. She looked at Maryann and Alex for a moment and then went over to the phone. She called several places, but there was no news of Julie anywhere.
After a few minutes, Maryann and Alex followed her and sat on the couch.
"Doreen," said Alex, "it's true. Julie did something wrong for the sake of money."
"No," Doreen insisted. "Wasn't the decision to move her to the R&D center your idea, Maryann? She wasn't plotting to steal your secrets; you put her there yourself."
Maryann stood up. She didn't want to distress Doreen any further, and they had learned everything they could here, so they said their goodbyes.
Once they were alone, Maryann let the tears fall. "Alex, I'm so sorry. It's all my fault that the formula was stolen."
The Robinson Group could have become one of the leading pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. and even in the world. Maryann had long dreamed of the moment when Golden Health became a household word. But now, it had all gone up in smoke.
She had also thought that their success might help her to pursue a relationship with Alex.
"Alex, I'll do my best to compensate you for your loss," she said. "The company will give you everything we have left. I don't want any part of it." She covered her face with her hands.
"Please don't cry," Alex said, hating to see her so upset. "Things may still turn around. As for compensation, don't worry about it. Please. I really don't care about money. The only thing I'm really worried about right now is Riley."
Maryann nodded, and then quickly reached for her buzzing cell phone and answered it.
"What? What did you say?" She turned pale. "Julie's dead?" The phone dropped from her limp fingers.
Alex was grieved, but not surprised. He had been worried about this possibility from the moment they had learned that she was missing. He had kept this to himself, not wanting to add to Doreen's and Maryann's distress. But his worst fears had turned out to be right.
***
They rushed to the hospital that the caller had named, and there, they discovered what had happened.
Two hours previously, the brakes of Julie's car had failed, and she had slammed it into the rear of a truck. An ambulance had taken her to a trauma center, but her injuries had been too serious, and she had passed away.
They sat down in a quiet area of the hospital and tried to make sense of it all.
"It can't be true," Maryann whispered, the tears running down her face. "How could this have happened?"
It was too much to take in all at once. First, there was the sudden collapse of her company, and then the loss of the woman that she had thought, until now, was her best friend. It felt like she was trapped in a nightmare, and in a little while, she would wake up and find that none of this had happened.
She leaned against Alex's shoulder. His expression was cool, but he didn't push her away.
"Do you think it was an accident? Or was it murder?" she asked, looking up at him. "Do you think that Riley killed her?"
Julie's testimony would have been critical to the Robinson Group's defense, and now it looked like the company's fate was sealed.
"If it was Riley, the police won't find anything." She bit her lip. "It was a company car, and it was in for maintenance just three days ago. The brakes were in fine shape."
"So how did Julie slam into the rear of that truck?" Alex asked, frowning.
Maryann frowned as she thought, There's no way this was an accident.
Alex looked up from his phone. "Someone has a video of the accident," he said. "And it seems that there was a problem with her brakes."