Chapter 642 The Ghost Behind the Curtain

Laurie glanced at the video thumbnail and paused. Then she looked again – this time frowning. “Why is it her?”

She turned to Yunice. “Who sent you this email?”

“Why would Nora send this to you?”

Yunice didn’t respond right away. Instead, she clicked on the three-second video.

The first second: Nora’s face, up close to the camera.

The second: shock flashing across her face as she recoiled.

The third: her face completely consumed by a dark blur.

The video ended.

Laurie was thoroughly confused.

But Yunice said quietly, “The one who stole my phone… was Nora.”

Laurie stared at the screen, at Nora’s guilty, panicked expression frozen in that thumbnail.

“Same old Nora,” she muttered. “Still just as damn annoying.”

Yunice glanced at her in surprise. She’d heard the stories from Maine, Morgan, Wyatt – even Nora herself – but never Laurie.

Laurie grabbed her bag of freeze-dried jackfruit again and munched as she spoke. “Nora’s a chronic liar.”

“When I first met her, she was already lying.”

“Wanna guess how? She kept subtly implying that she and Wyatt were sleeping together.”

Yunice blinked. “They weren’t?”

Laurie scoffed. “Hell no.”

“She manipulated everyone around her, banking on the fact that no one dared stir things up by going to Wyatt himself.”

Then Laurie smirked. “You know why Nora got fired from Wellinges Pharma?”

“Fired?” Yunice echoed, stunned.

Laurie chuckled. “Of course fired. Why else would she leave everything behind, needing Jordan to pack her things and send them back to the Johnson family?”

“It was me. I went straight to Wyatt and exposed the lie she’d been spreading – that she was his girlfriend.”

Yunice blinked in confusion. “Wait, wait, Laurie, now I’m lost. Wyatt admitted he and Nora used to be together.”

So how did this turn into a lie Nora made up?

Laurie laughed. “That’s where she’s smart. No normal person would be bold enough to fabricate something like that. But she did it right under Wyatt’s nose, taking advantage of his distance from lower-level staff.”

“She built up a reputation through fear and charm. Her polished image made people echo her words. It made her look competent – so she got promoted all the way to executive secretary, stationed right next to Wyatt.”

“But too bad for her, she tried her game on me.”

Laurie was still visibly smug about it. “This was three, maybe four years ago. Wellinges Pharma was taking heat for a supply chain scandal. As executive secretary, Nora needed someone to take the fall. Who’d she pick? My lab.”

“Like hell I was gonna let that happen.”

“I told her to take her lies somewhere else. You know what she did next? She called me into her office and threatened me – said if I didn’t play along, she’d make things hard for my daughter.”

Yunice froze. She hadn’t known Laurie had a daughter.

Laurie skipped right over that detail. “So I asked her – ‘Does Wyatt know you’re threatening people’s families?’ And she had the nerve to tell me Wyatt hinted I should comply.”

Laurie shook her head, laughing. “She really thought I’d buy that crap. She thought I’d be too scared to confront Wyatt. But I kicked open the door to her office, stormed out in front of the whole secretary department, and yelled for Wyatt to come out and face me.”

“You should’ve seen her face – pale as a ghost!”

“I made a scene. I asked Wyatt directly if he had told her to frame me. If yes, I’d wreck his office. If no, I’d wreck her.”

Yunice could practically picture the scene as Laurie told it.

Laurie continued, “Our lab’s PhDs tried to pull me back, saying to go easy on her since she was ‘Mr. Wyatt’s girlfriend.’ Gotta save her some face, right? And that’s when Wyatt realized Nora had been publicly implying they were together. So he fired her. Same day. She came back later, crying that we’d wronged her, that she’d never said such things, demanding we show proof. Wyatt didn’t even listen. And soon after, that steel plant accident happened – Nora was in it. She ended up in a coma for two or three years. And now she’s back, skulking around you like a ghost,” Laurie said, tapping her temple. “She’s not right in the head. But I’ll give it to her – Nora knows how to mess with people. She’s got that sweet, innocent, harmless look that makes it hard to hate her. She’s fooled a lot of people. Even now, some still believe she and Wyatt had a thing, that she’s his untouchable taboo.”

Laurie narrowed her eyes. “I’m guessing Wyatt told you they dated just to avoid further confusion.”