Page 20 of If She Sensed

There was a slight pause from the other end, maybe just a beat too long to feel normal."What kind of questions?"

“Oh, just about your time there," Sloane said."What the experience was like.Whether you completed the program, that sort of thing."

There was another pause before Gloria said, "I didn't finish it.”She almostsnappedthe answer at them."I left partway through."

Kate set the last of her second taco down on the paper wrap and looked at Sloane.

"Can you tell us a bit about why you left?"Sloane asked.

There was a quiet on the line that felt almost electric.Kate was expecting some sort of pushback or, at the very least, for Gloria to ask for proof that they were agents.But when Gloria spoke again, her voice was lower and more deliberate."I'm not trying to make it into something bigger than it was," she said."I want to be upfront about that."

"We appreciate that," Kate said.

"There was one session in particular," Gloria said."It was private coaching, one-on-one with Hale.Not a group session.I'd been sharing things with him—personal things, about my marriage… about some specific situations that had happened as it was going on."She stopped briefly, and Kate heard the slight tightening in her voice."A few weeks later, I'm in group and Hale is doing this exercise with us where he walks through these anonymous case studies.He explains them as composite examples, things to help the group think through certain patterns.And he starts describing one, and…" She sighed, but Kate was pretty sure she could hear some anger to it."It was me.The details were changed enough that no one else in the room would have known, butIknew.The specific situation, the way it was framed, certain phrases I had actually used.It was me.He was using me as an example."

Kate took her phone out and started typing up the notes.This was the first thing they’d heard about Hale or Fresh Horizons that hadn’t been completely glowing.

"I didn't say anything at the time," Gloria continued."I went home and thought about it for a week, and then I decided I didn't want to keep going.So, I left.Now, I know what he did wasn't illegal or anything, but… I don’t know.Even though he changed enough details, it felt like an invasion, you know?He could call it a composite or an example or whatever he wanted and probably no one would ever prove otherwise."

"But you felt certain," Sloane said.

"I felt completely certain."There was no heat in it, just a flat, tired clarity."And the thing that stuck with me was that if he did it with my material, he probably did it with others.How much of what we told him in private actually stayed private?It was a question I kept coming back to and I…well, I genuinely don't know."

None of them said anything for a moment.On the street behind Kate, a car slowed and then accelerated.A phone rang somewhere nearby and went unanswered.A new customer to the taco truck was laughing about something.

"Ms.Tran," Kate said, "you disclosed something personal in an individual session with Hale, and then heard that same material presented to the group as a case study.Is that what we’re hearing?"

"Yes."

"And Hale never acknowledged it?Never approached you afterward?"

"Never," Gloria said."I don't think he knew I realized it.”

“Do you think that was arrogance or ignorance?”Sloane asked.

“Maybe a bit of both.He acted completely normally toward me for the two weeks between that session and when I quit.He probably assumed I hadn't put it together."She looked between them, shaking her head slowly."Look, I thought about reporting it to a life coaching certification board.”She chuckled in a dry, humorless sound.“But in the end, I just left."

"We appreciate you being so candid," Sloane said."This is genuinely helpful."

“Is something going on with them?”she asked.“Are they under investigation?”

“I’m afraid we can’t share that sort of information, Ms.Tran.But we do appreciate you taking the time to speak with us.”

“Oh, ok.Sure.”

They thanked her again and ended the call.Kate looked down at the remnants of her lunch.The paper wrapping had gone a little translucent with grease and she folded it over on itself without thinking about it.Sloane was sitting back on the bench with her hands around her soda cup, looking at the table.

"It's not a crime," Sloane said, after a moment.

“Maybe not,” Kate said."But it means Hale had access to deeply personal information about women in vulnerable situations, and he was not as careful with it as he led them to believe."

Sloane nodded slowly."And if he was willing to use what was shared in private sessions in a room full of people, even anonymized, then the question of what else he might have done with that information becomes a real one.And so…if someone in that program had access to Carol and Donna's names, their patterns, their routines—that could have come from inside the group."

“And maybe from the sort of people who may know details such as when someone leaves their backdoor unlocked,” Kate added.She thought about the online forum, still open in a tab on her laptop back at the office.The posts and the profile pictures and the private messages between members.Hale had handed over the administrator login without blinking, sitting across from them in that carefully considered office.His willingness to give them access to everything had read as transparency.It still might be but now, given what they’d just heard, maybe there was more to it.

But Gloria Tran's quiet account of sitting in a circle and hearing her own private story offered back to her had opened up something Kate had been circling without fully realizing it.The program was not simply a place where two victims had once overlapped.It was a place where a man had gathered extremely personal disclosures and retained control over who saw them and how they were used.

That was worth noting.