Chapter 9: Chloe’s Backpedal

Liam’s frantic hang-up left me with a buzzing mix of confirmation and dread. The pieces were finally beginning to click into place, but the picture they formed was ugly. I knew I couldn’t sit on this. I had to confront Chloe, to see her reaction when faced with a tangible slip-up.

I called her, my voice deliberately even, trying to hide the seismic shift in my certainty. “Chloe,” I said, “I just called Elite Properties again. I spoke to an intern named Liam. He said some strange things about our file.”

There was a beat of silence on the other end, a pause that stretched just a fraction too long. Then, Chloe’s voice, smooth and practiced, broke through. “An intern? Liam? Oh, Maya, honestly. You really shouldn’t be calling them directly. I told you, it just confuses things.”

Her tone was tinged with irritation, a subtle reprimand. But I detected a faint tremor in her voice, a slight tightening around the edges.

“He said our papers went missing for a few days,” I pushed, watching for any tell-tale sign. “And then they reappeared with ‘odd handwritten notes’ and ‘dates that don’t quite line up.’ What does that mean, Chloe?”

Another pause, longer this time. I could almost hear her mind racing, calculating her next move. Then, she let out a short, dismissive laugh, a sound that grated on my nerves. “Liam? Oh, him. He’s just an overzealous intern, Maya. He doesn’t know anything about how these big companies work. He probably saw some internal processing notes and totally misinterpreted them.”

She sounded completely unfazed, almost bored. It was a performance. “You know how new interns are. They see a few scribbles, a couple of corrected dates – which are perfectly normal in a complex application, by the way – and they blow it all out of proportion. He’s just trying to seem important.”

Her nonchalance was chilling. It was a masterclass in gaslighting, twisting a direct revelation into the blatherings of an incompetent newbie. She was trying to make me doubt what I had heard, to dismiss it as insignificant, to make *me* feel foolish for even asking. It was another petty cruelty, aimed at discrediting the truth itself.

“He specifically said ‘odd handwritten notes’ and ‘dates that don’t line up’,” I reiterated, my voice steady despite the tremor in my hands. “That doesn’t sound like normal processing to me.”

Chloe sighed, a theatrical expression of exasperation. “Maya, honestly. You’re letting this stress get to you. This is exactly what I was worried about. You’re starting to imagine things, looking for conspiracies where there’s just standard bureaucratic inefficiency.”

She doubled down, her voice taking on a sympathetic, yet patronizing, tone. “Elite Properties is a massive company. Things get shuffled. Papers get misfiled. It happens. It’s not some grand plot, it’s just how the system works. And your family, bless their hearts, they’re just not used to this kind of scale, this kind of system. It’s a steep learning curve, I know.”

The subtle jab at my family’s “cultural background,” her familiar trope, felt sharper now, more pointed. She was using our perceived “naiveté” as a weapon, twisting it into a reason to doubt my own instincts. She was trying to make me believe that *I* was the problem, that my suspicions were born of a cultural inability to “keep up.”

“I’m trying my best to help you navigate this,” she continued, her voice softening, oozing false concern. “But if you keep chasing after every little thing an intern says, you’re just going to make yourself crazy, and you’re going to alienate Ms. Albright, who, by the way, is still the key to getting your lease approved.”

Her mention of Ms. Albright was a veiled threat, a reminder of her supposed power and influence. It was a desperate move, an attempt to reassert control and steer me away from asking too many questions. The manipulation was so transparent now, so glaringly obvious.

“I need to know what’s going on, Chloe,” I stated, my voice losing its calm facade. “Abuela’s health is at risk. Our loan is delayed. This isn’t just ‘little things.'”

Chloe’s sigh was loud and drawn out. “Okay, Maya. I get it. You’re worried. I’ll make sure to put the pressure on Ms. Albright. But you have to trust me to handle it. Leave Liam and his ‘odd notes’ alone. He’s a nobody. He doesn’t know anything. I’m your best friend. I’m the one who’s actually helping you.”

The conversation ended without resolution. She had denied everything, dismissed the evidence, and spun a tale designed to make me feel foolish. But her performance, perfect as it was, had failed. The tiny crack in her composure, the almost imperceptible tremor, the way she rushed to dismiss Liam – it was enough.

I hung up, my hands trembling with a mixture of anger and a cold, dawning certainty. Liam wasn’t an “overzealous intern.” He was a witness. And Chloe wasn’t “helping.” She was gaslighting me, trying to erase my perception of reality, piece by piece. The clarity of her betrayal cut through me, sharp and painful. The petty cruelty of her dismissal, her attempts to discredit not only Liam but my own sanity, galvanized my resolve. I wouldn’t let her get away with this.