Chương 5
He had not.
But there had been moments.
A glass thrown into a fireplace after a failed acquisition.
A fist against the pantry door when a reporter published details of his compensation.
Once, during an argument about my mother’s treatment, he had gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white and driven twenty miles without speaking.
He had never touched me.
I had used that fact like a fence between acceptable and unacceptable.
“No,” I repeated, less confidently.
My mother watched me.
“You don’t have to decide your whole life tonight.”
“I think he decided part of it for me.”
“Maybe.”
She swallowed.
“But anger makes everything look simple.”
I frowned.
“You’re defending him?”
“God, no.”
The answer came with surprising force.
She coughed afterward.
I helped her sip water through a straw.
When she settled again, she said, “I’m defending you from making your next decision because of his worst one.”
I sat very still.
Outside the room, a cart squeaked along the hallway.
Someone laughed softly at the nurses’ station.
My mother rubbed her thumb against my hand.
“Leave him because you want a life without him.”
Her eyes closed.
“Not because you need him punished.”
Before I could answer, she drifted to sleep.
I sat beside her for almost two hours.
At three seventeen, my phone vibrated.
Margaret.
I stepped into the hallway to answer.
“She’s sleeping.”
Margaret was silent for a moment.
“I’m glad you reached her.”
“What is LM Strategic Consulting?”
The silence changed.
Not grief now.
Calculation.
“You saw the transfers.”
“Almost nine hundred thousand dollars.”
“Yes.”
“Who owns it?”
Margaret exhaled.
“On paper, a man named Leonard Mason.”
“And in reality?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Then why did you tell me to change my passwords?”
“Because Leonard Mason is Laura’s uncle.”
I leaned against the hallway wall.
The paint was pale green and chipped near the baseboard.
“How long have you known?”
“Since yesterday.”
“Yesterday.”
“I was verifying it.”
“You could have called me.”
“I should have.”
My voice hardened.
“Yes.”
“I know.”
There was no defensiveness in her answer, which somehow made me angrier.
“What exactly are you verifying?”
“Payments from Mercer Hospitality.”
My stomach tightened.
“Company money?”
“Some of it may be.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means Laura was brought into the executive office eighteen months ago under a consulting arrangement that predates her employment.”
I stared down the empty hallway.
“Elijah hired her.”
“Yes.”
“I know that.”
“No, Alex.”
Margaret’s voice lowered.
“I don’t think you do.”
A nurse passed carrying folded sheets, and I turned toward the window until she was gone.
“Then tell me.”
“I found invoices.”
“What invoices?”
“Strategy work.”
“Did she do it?”
“That is one of the questions.”
“One of them.”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
“What’s the other?”
Margaret hesitated long enough that I opened them again.
“Why Elijah authorized payments to her uncle’s company three months before he claims he first met Laura.”
For a moment, the only sound in the hallway was the compressor inside a vending machine at the far end.
“Three months?”
“That’s what the records show.”
“Elijah told me he met her at the Denver development conference.”
“I remember.”
“He called me from Denver that night.”
“I remember that too.”
I pressed my fingers against my forehead.
He had complained about the conference dinner, about an investor who talked through dessert, about the hotel pillows being too soft.
The next afternoon he had mentioned meeting a consultant named Laura Bennett who understood the boutique market better than half his development team.
It had sounded incidental.
Within six months, she was working directly for him.
“What were the earlier payments for?”
“The invoices say competitive analysis and acquisition research.”
“How much?”
“Enough that I noticed.”
“That isn’t a number.”
“Four hundred and twenty thousand dollars over three months.”
I stared at the green wall.
“And you found this yesterday?”
“I found the invoices yesterday.”
“Why were you looking?”
Margaret did not answer immediately.
That frightened me more than the number.
“Margaret.”
“The audit committee received an anonymous complaint last week.”
“About Elijah?”
“About procurement irregularities in the chairman’s office.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“You’re on the board.”
“Yes.”
“Does he know?”
“He knows there is a review.”
“Does he know you’re involved?”
“He assumes I am.”
“That sounds like yes.”
“It is.”
I pushed away from the wall and walked toward the small family lounge.
The television was on without sound.
A late-night host grinned at an audience beneath subtitles while an elderly man slept in an armchair with a paperback open on his chest.
I lowered my voice.
“Does Laura know?”
“I don’t know.”
“You told me not to meet her alone.”
“That was not because I think she’s going to attack you.”
“Then why?”
“Because after what happened tonight, anything between you and Laura can be turned into a story.”
I stopped beside the window.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning you were publicly accused of jealousy in front of donors, employees, board members, and at least two journalists.”
The humiliation returned with surprising physical force.
I touched my cheek.
“Someone recorded it.”
“I would assume several people did.”
“Has it been posted?”
“Not that I’ve seen.”
“Yet.”
“No.”
The sleeping man in the armchair snored once, startled himself awake, and looked around suspiciously before settling again.
I envied him.
“Does Elijah know about the transfers from our personal account?”
“I cannot answer that.”
“He would have had to authorize them.”
“Not necessarily.”
I frowned.
“Our investment manager doesn’t move that kind of money because someone sends an email.”
“No, but both of you granted limited authorization to the family office three years ago.”
I remembered signing the documents.
There had been dozens of pages.
Elijah had been impatient because we were leaving for Cabo that afternoon.
I had asked one question about tax reporting, and he had kissed my forehead and said, “This is why I pay people who understand it.”
May you like
I had signed.
The memory made me feel stupid.
