Chương 10
“You signed it?”
“No.”
Serena watched my face and silently mouthed, What?
I held up one finger.
Dominic continued.
“I was in Sicily the week the file was removed.”
“Can you prove that?”
“Yes.”
“Then somebody forged your signature.”
“Or used a stored authorization image.”
“You keep digital copies of executive signatures?”
“We used to.”
“That sounds catastrophically stupid.”
“I inherited a company with several traditions I would not recommend.”
“What did SP-17 control?”
“I told you, I don't know.”
“You know enough to be scared of it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He hesitated.
“Because my father didn't use succession protocols for routine matters.”
I sat again.
“What did he use them for?”
“When he thought a decision might be challenged after his death.”
A sick feeling settled behind my ribs.
“By family?”
“Sometimes.”
“Partners?”
“Yes.”
“Employees?”
“Possibly.”
“You really need another vocabulary word.”
Serena slid a glass of water toward me.
I drank because my mouth had gone dry.
Dominic said, “Can you read the reference number again?”
“VM-SP-17.”
I heard keys clicking.
Then silence.
Then more keys.
“What?”
“There are twenty-one succession protocols in the archive index.”
“And?”
“Seventeen has no description.”
“Convenient.”
“The entries before and after it do.”
“What are they?”
“SP-16 transferred voting authority in two property subsidiaries during my father's heart surgery.”
“And eighteen?”
“An instruction regarding a charitable trust.”
“So seventeen was deliberately blank.”
“It appears that way.”
I looked at Elliot's signature on my agreement.
“Maybe the agreement is part of it.”
“Maybe.”
“And maybe Pike needed the original file because my copy proves it existed.”
“Yes.”
“Then why fire me now?”
Dominic took a moment.
“That is the question.”
Serena leaned toward me.
“Speaker,” she whispered.
I shook my head.
She rolled her eyes.
“You're hiding from mafia HR at midnight and suddenly privacy matters?”
I covered the phone.
“Please stop calling it mafia HR.”
“What should I call it?”
“Corporate fraud.”
“That is less fun.”
Despite myself, a laugh slipped out.
Dominic said, “Who is that?”
“No one.”
“That sounded like someone.”
“My friend.”
“The one you aren't telling me about.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
That was not the reaction I expected.
“You're not going to ask where I am?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you asked me not to.”
I looked at Serena.
She gave me a suspicious little nod, as if Dominic had unexpectedly passed a test neither of us had announced.
“Anna,” he said, “I need you to do something unpleasant.”
“That narrows nothing.”
“Look at the signatures on your agreement.”
“I have.”
“Not Elliot's.”
I lowered my eyes to Vincent's name.
“What about it?”
“Photograph it close enough to see the pen strokes.”
I did.
“Sent.”
“Now the witness signature.”
Another photograph.
“Sent.”
Marco said something in the background.
Dominic replied, “I know.”
Then to me, “Don't go anywhere tomorrow morning.”
“I have no plans to.”
“I need to verify something before we meet.”
“You're still assuming we're meeting.”
“We are.”
“You're developing an optimism problem.”
“Anna.”
“What?”
“If that agreement is authentic, you were not simply protected from termination.”
My fingers tightened around the paper.
“What else?”
“The phrase employment consideration has a specific meaning in old Moretti contracts.”
“What meaning?”
“It usually accompanied compensation.”
I stared at the paragraph again.
“There is no compensation amount.”
“Not on your copy.”
“Then where?”
“Possibly SP-17.”
Serena watched me closely.
I stood and walked into the dark dining room so Lily wouldn't hear if she came downstairs.
“What kind of compensation?”
“I don't know.”
“You must have an idea.”
“I have several.”
“Give me the least dramatic one.”
“A guaranteed position.”
“I already got that.”
“No, you got protection if hired.”
“What's the difference?”
“A guaranteed position creates an obligation on the company to place you.”
I looked at the agreement.
“My application was triggered.”
“Yes.”
“So your father arranged for me to get hired if I ever applied.”
“That appears likely.”
“Without telling me.”
“Yes.”
I felt suddenly angry at Vincent.
It arrived clean and hot.
“Why would he do that?”
“Maybe because you lost your job helping him.”
“I found another one.”
“Eventually.”
“He had no right.”
Dominic was quiet.
“No.”
The agreement trembled in my hand.
People always assumed help erased the violation that preceded it.
It didn't.
Vincent had decided something about my life without asking.
Even if he had meant well.
Especially if he had meant well.
“What are your dramatic theories?” I asked.
“Anna.”
“You said several.”
“They're theories.”
“Tell me.”
“A financial award.”
“How much?”
“No idea.”
“Stock?”
“Possible.”
“Stop saying possible.”
“I didn't.”
“Close enough.”
He sighed.
“Equity is one option.”
I laughed because the alternative was believing him.
“Your father gave stock to a pregnant junior accountant he'd met once?”
“He gave stock to a bartender because the man kept his mouth shut about an argument.”
“That cannot be true.”
“It cost me two years to buy it back.”
For the first time that night, I pictured Dominic not as the man whose surname occupied half my employment history but as someone cleaning up the legal debris left by an impossible father.
It did not make me trust him.
It made him more recognizable.
“There's another possibility,” he said.
“What?”
“A claim against recovered funds.”
I stopped.
“What recovered funds?”
“If your report led to savings or restitution, my father sometimes awarded a percentage.”
“That sounds generous.”
“It wasn't always.”
“Meaning?”
“It kept people loyal.”
There it was.
Not generosity.
Leverage.
That sounded like Vincent too.
“How much money did my report recover?”
“I don't know yet.”
“The vendor contracts were suspended.”
“Yes.”
“But if Harbor Lane survived, maybe the fraud didn't stop.”
“That is what I'm investigating.”
I rubbed my eyes.
“Dominic, I spent eight years inside compliance.”
“I know.”
“If these vendors were still active, why didn't I see them?”
“Because you reviewed payroll controls.”
“Not vendor payments.”
“Exactly.”
May you like
The answer was so simple it made me feel foolish.
A company could place someone three floors away from the truth and call that distance protection.
