She asked whether Sabrina had called her. I told her about the message, and Lorraine admitted she had received one that morning. Sabrina had said she made a terrible mistake and hoped my mother would remind me how much we had built together. Lorraine had responded that Sabrina would need to speak to me directly, because a marriage wasn't something parents could negotiate on behalf of their children.
"I did love her," my mother said. "In my own way, I still do. But I won't become a tool she uses to rush you."
I drove home feeling exhausted and unexpectedly lighter. There was something powerful about not being asked to perform strength for people who loved me. I went to bed before midnight and slept four hours, which felt like an achievement.
The next development arrived on a Monday, eleven days after Room 1012. Malik came into my office with a worried expression and closed the door behind him. He said somebody from Ellison & Pike had called our receptionist that morning, asking whether we'd performed any consulting work for a hospitality client in Center City. The caller was a woman named Janelle Price from compliance, and she had left a direct number.
"I didn't tell her anything except that our office handles commercial restoration," Malik said. "But it sounded like she knew your name already."
I called Rebecca and then returned Janelle's message. Janelle explained that Ellison & Pike was reviewing travel expenses connected to several business-development projects and that my name had appeared in an internal conversation because Sabrina had referred to my company as a potential vendor. She made clear I had done nothing wrong and was under no obligation to answer without counsel. I asked what exactly she needed from me.
"We want to confirm whether Lawson & Torres performed any work for a hotel client our firm has been advising," she said. "And whether you received compensation or provided proposals associated with that account."
"No," I said. "We have never submitted a proposal to Ellison & Pike's hospitality team. I haven't been asked."
There was a pause. Janelle thanked me and said she might request written confirmation through my attorney. I hung up and stared at the window over the parking lot. For a moment the affair seemed to have grown another set of walls, extending beyond the hotel room into my business. I called Malik back and asked him to pull our incoming-request records for the past year, not to look for proof of wrongdoing but to verify that nobody had used our company's name without our knowledge.
We found no contracts and no payments. We found one inquiry sent six months earlier to a general mailbox from an Ellison & Pike assistant, asking for a ballpark price on facade repairs for an unnamed Philadelphia property. Malik had replied with our standard note that pricing required a site inspection and a clearly identified client. Nobody had followed up. The record did not prove fraud, but it made the question from compliance feel less random.