Chương 4
“You’re going to be late.”
He left without answering.
The coffee shop Daniel had chosen occupied the ground floor of an old brick building between a dry cleaner and a dentist.
Nobody there looked remotely interested in corporate finance.
Daniel was already seated in the back with two coffees and a legal pad.
Five years had put gray at his temples and deeper lines beside his mouth.
He stood when he saw me.
His eyes dropped briefly to my stomach.
“Wow.”
“That’s a dangerous thing to say to a pregnant woman.”
“I was going to say you look good.”
“That’s worse.”
He pulled out the chair for me.
“You still impossible?”
“More expensive now.”
I sat.
For a few seconds, neither of us knew what to do with five missing years.
Daniel pushed one coffee toward me.
“Decaf.”
I looked at the cup.
“You remembered.”
“You used to become homicidal after three espressos.”
“That happened once.”
“You threatened a printer.”
“It deserved it.”
His smile disappeared almost immediately.
“Show me what you brought.”
I took out my tablet.
“I searched my own email.”
“Good.”
“There are more introductions than I remembered.”
“How many?”
“Twenty-seven that became meetings.”
Daniel stopped writing.
“Twenty-seven?”
“Some were nothing.”
“How many became clients or investors?”
“I don’t know.”
“I do.”
He turned the legal pad around.
There were eleven names written on it.
I recognized every one.
My mouth went dry.
“Where did you get this?”
“Public announcements, old correspondence, conversations I remember.”
He tapped the first name.
“Halpern.”
Then the next.
“Crestview.”
Another.
“North Harbor.”
I interrupted him.
“North Harbor wasn’t mine.”
“The original introduction was.”
“No, Ethan knew Paul.”
“Ethan met Paul at your retirement dinner.”
I stared at the name.
A memory surfaced without invitation.
Paul Richardson laughing too loudly beside the bar, Ethan standing at my elbow, his hand warm against my back as I introduced them.
At the time, Ethan’s company had seven employees and a rented conference room with a broken thermostat.
“How much?” I asked.
Daniel did not pretend to misunderstand.
“Collectively?”
“Yes.”
“I can estimate investment exposure.”
“I don’t want an estimate.”
“Then we’ll need records we don’t have.”
“How much can you verify?”
Daniel looked at me for a moment.
“More than sixty million in capital commitments over several rounds.”
I sat back.
A milk steamer shrieked behind the counter.
Someone near the window complained loudly about parking.
The ordinary noise of the room felt obscene.
“That doesn’t mean they invested because of me.”
“No.”
“Ethan built a real company.”
“Yes.”
“He made the product work.”
“As far as I know.”
“He hired the team.”
“Mostly.”
I frowned.
“Mostly?”
Daniel capped his pen.
“Emily, I’m not here to tell you Ethan is a fraud.”
“Then what are you telling me?”
“That your husband has spent years presenting relationships as his own that began with you.”
“That isn’t illegal.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“It isn’t even necessarily wrong.”
Daniel leaned back.
“You’re defending him.”
“I’m being accurate.”
“Good.”
His expression softened slightly.
“That part of you survived.”
I ignored that.
“What else?”
He hesitated.
There it was.
The thing he had not wanted to say over the phone.
“Daniel.”
“Three years ago, Ethan approached me about joining an advisory group.”
I stared at him.
“You never told me.”
“I assumed you knew.”
“I didn’t.”
“I declined.”
“Why?”
“He wanted permission to use my name in investor materials.”
“Permission?”
“Informally.”
“What did he say?”
Daniel looked down at his coffee.
“That you were stepping away permanently and had asked him to maintain the relationships you’d built.”
My skin went cold.
“I never asked him that.”
“I know that now.”
“You believed him?”
“You had stopped answering professional emails.”
“I had a miscarriage.”
The words came out sharper than I intended.
Daniel’s face changed.
“I know.”
“No, you knew afterward.”
“Yes.”
“I couldn’t talk to anyone.”
“I know.”
“You sent flowers.”
He looked at the table.
“I didn’t know what else to do.”
Neither of us spoke for several seconds.
I had spent years avoiding that winter so completely that even the memory of condolence flowers made my chest tighten.
Ethan had handled everything then.
Calls.
Meals.
Messages.
He had told people I needed space, and I had been grateful.
Daniel slid the legal pad aside.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.”
“Okay.”
I took a breath.
“What else did Ethan say?”
“That you didn’t want your name associated with active business anymore.”
“That part was true for a while.”
“He also said you had transferred your relationship files to him.”
I looked up.
“What relationship files?”
Daniel watched me carefully.
“Your old Bennett Advisory contact database.”
“I never gave him that.”
“You’re sure?”
“I shut the firm down myself.”
“Where was the database?”
“Encrypted drive.”
“Where?”
“At home.”
Daniel said nothing.
The answer arrived before he gave it.
Our old townhouse.
The downstairs office.
A locked filing cabinet I had barely opened after the miscarriage.
Ethan knew where the key was because Ethan knew where everything was.
“I need to go home.”
Daniel caught my wrist before I stood fully.
“Emily.”
I looked at his hand.
He released me immediately.
“Don’t accuse him yet.”
“He stole my files.”
“We don’t know that.”
“He had access.”
“That is not the same thing.”
I hated him for being right.
“What do I do?”
“Find out whether the drive is still where you left it.”
“And if it isn’t?”
“Then we find out when it disappeared.”
My phone vibrated on the table.
Ethan’s name appeared on the screen.
I let it ring.
A message followed.
Call me immediately.
Then another.
Did you speak to Daniel Mercer?
Daniel saw my face.
“What?”
I turned the phone toward him.
His expression went still.
“That was fast.”
“How does he know?”
“I haven’t told anyone.”
“Neither have I.”
The phone rang again.
This time I answered.
“What?”
Ethan did not bother with hello.
“Where are you?”
“Out.”
May you like
“Are you with Daniel?”
I looked across the table at him.
