Todd's deposition was shorter and, in some ways, more painful. He admitted signing several committee approvals without checking whether related-party payments had been properly disclosed. He insisted he had believed the consultants performed legitimate work because Patricia told him they had. Harlan asked what he personally knew.
Todd had little to offer beyond trust in his wife. By the end of the session, he looked older than when he entered. Outside the conference room he sat on a bench and stared at the floor until his attorney came to find him.
At home, Patricia stopped opening the curtains facing the street. Neighbors who had once waved enthusiastically now kept conversations short, uncertain whether anything they said would become part of the lawsuit. She told herself she was being persecuted by people who had benefited from her work and now wanted to distance themselves from a controversy. There was some truth to the fact that many had accepted her favors and rarely asked questions. But she did not allow herself to follow that thought to its conclusion, because it led back to her own decisions.
She had grown up in a Connecticut family where appearances were a form of social currency. Her parents insisted that embarrassment was something you prevented before it happened, preferably by controlling who entered the room. She learned to spot weakness in a gathering and shift attention toward it before anyone noticed her own insecurity. In real estate, those habits sometimes made her persuasive and sometimes made her cruel. She had spent so many years being the person who judged whether others belonged that she no longer recognized what it looked like from the other side.
None of that excused the financial records or the emergency call. It explained why losing an HOA title frightened her so deeply. The presidency had turned a neighborhood volunteer position into proof that she mattered, and she had arranged her relationships around that proof. When James refused to accept her authority, he wasn't merely rejecting a committee recommendation in her mind. He was refusing the identity she had built. The more he declined to argue on her terms, the more desperately she looked for a place where she could compel him to participate.
Her lawyer asked during one meeting whether she had ever seriously considered leaving Whitfield alone after receiving Harlan's first letter. She stared at him before answering. "If I had backed down, everyone would have thought I was weak."
"Even if the association had no authority?"
"Especially then," she said, and immediately wished she had not.
The South Carolina real estate regulator opened a separate licensing investigation after receiving complaints supported by listings, disclosures, and witness statements. It notified Patricia of the allegations, gave her an opportunity to respond, and examined whether she had made materially misleading representations or breached professional obligations in the transactions she handled. Her license was temporarily restricted and then suspended during formal proceedings under the applicable process. She could challenge the findings and seek review; the action was not a sentence delivered by James or his lawyer.