Chương 12
Her eyes met mine.
“I’m already in it.”
Grant turned.
“Melissa.”
“No.”
Her voice was weak but sharp.
“Don’t do that thing where you tell me what I can handle.”
He went quiet.
She looked at Lena.
“You’re the accountant.”
Lena blinked.
“Yes.”
“I saw your name in his email.”
Grant stiffened.
“What email?”
Melissa ignored him.
“Did you find Brightwell?”
No one moved.
I stared at her.
“You know Brightwell?”
She closed her eyes.
Grant stepped closer to the wheelchair.
“Melissa.”
She opened them again.
“I found it six months ago.”
Grant’s face went blank.
“What?”
“In the vendor files.”
“You never told me.”
“I tried.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did.”
“When?”
“Chicago.”
He frowned.
“The investor conference?”
“You were drunk.”
“I was not drunk.”
“You ordered room service at two in the morning and tried to explain EBITDA to a lamp.”
Lena coughed to hide a laugh.
Even Daniel’s mouth twitched.
Grant looked offended.
“I was tired.”
Melissa stared at him.
“You were drunk.”
I almost smiled despite myself.
Then the meaning caught up.
“What did you find?”
Melissa looked at me.
“Brightwell was receiving payments through a consulting chain.”
“That we know.”
“No.”
She swallowed.
“The chain wasn’t ending at Brightwell.”
Lena moved closer.
“Where did it end?”
Melissa’s hands tightened around the blanket over her knees.
“Different places.”
“Which places?”
“One was Grant’s account.”
Grant stared at her.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing?”
“I thought you were doing it.”
His face went still.
“Doing what?”
“Moving money out of Northstar before the sale.”
“What sale?”
Melissa looked at me, then back at him.
“The Helix acquisition.”
Daniel spoke immediately.
“There is no Helix acquisition.”
Melissa’s expression changed.
“Yes, there is.”
“No.”
“I saw the draft term sheet.”
Grant looked genuinely confused.
“What term sheet?”
She stared at him.
“The one in your encrypted board folder.”
Grant slowly shook his head.
“I never negotiated with Helix.”
Evelyn’s face had gone pale.
Daniel noticed.
“Evelyn.”
She did not answer.
He stepped toward her.
“Is there a Helix transaction?”
Evelyn’s lips pressed together.
Finally, she said, “There was a preliminary approach.”
Grant looked at her.
“When?”
“Seven months ago.”
“You never told me.”
“The board rejected it before management review.”
“Why?”
“Because they wanted control of Northstar’s diagnostic division.”
I felt Lena shift beside me.
“Aurelius Diagnostics,” she said.
Evelyn looked at her.
Lena’s eyes narrowed.
“The names are not accidental.”
“No.”
I turned to Evelyn.
“What are you not saying now?”
She looked at Melissa.
“Where did you see the term sheet?”
“In Grant’s folder.”
“That folder is permission-controlled.”
“I know.”
“Who gave you access?”
Melissa swallowed.
“No one.”
Grant’s voice was flat.
“You used my credentials.”
She looked at him.
“Yes.”
The silence after that felt different from the others.
Less surprised.
More exhausted.
Grant sat down slowly.
“You accessed my board files.”
“I was trying to find out if you were leaving.”
“Leaving what?”
“Northstar.”
Her mouth trembled.
“Leaving me.”
He looked at her as if he had never seen her before.
Melissa turned toward me.
“I thought if he sold the company, he’d take the money and go back to you.”
The honesty was pathetic and cruel and completely human.
I had no idea what to do with it.
Grant covered his face with both hands.
Melissa whispered, “I’m sorry.”
I looked at her.
“For which part?”
She lowered her eyes.
“All of it.”
I believed she meant that.
It did not make me forgive her.
Lena’s laptop chimed.
She stared at the screen.
Then she looked at Daniel.
“I have the Brightwell equity signature packet.”
Daniel moved beside her.
“Who signed?”
Lena’s expression became unreadable.
“Not Grant.”
I felt my pulse in my throat.
“Not Melissa?”
“No.”
“Evelyn?”
“No.”
I stepped closer.
“Then who?”
Lena turned the laptop toward me.
The signature belonged to Martin Vale.
I looked down at my phone.
His call was still connected.
“Martin.”
There was no answer.
“Martin?”
We heard movement on the other end.
Then his voice returned.
Very quietly.
“I was afraid you were going to find that.”
I kept the phone on speaker and looked at the signature packet on Lena’s laptop.
Martin’s name sat beneath a board resolution granting Brightwell eighteen percent of Aurelius in exchange for fifty thousand dollars and assumption of several consulting contracts.
“Why were you afraid?”
Martin did not answer immediately.
“Because I signed something I should not have signed.”
“That part is obvious.”
“I believed I was preserving your father’s structure.”
“You gave away eighteen percent of it.”
“I was told the dilution was temporary.”
“By whom?”
There was a small rustle on his end of the call.
“Martin.”
“Evelyn.”
I turned toward her.
She did not deny it.
Grant stared at her.
“You told him to admit Brightwell?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Aurelius needed the engineers Brightwell controlled.”
“Brightwell didn’t control engineers.”
“At the time, it did.”
Lena tapped the laptop.
“According to these contracts, Brightwell controlled three consulting teams.”
Grant shook his head.
“That was never supposed to include equity.”
Evelyn’s eyes narrowed.
“You had already stopped attending the remediation committee.”
“Because Robert was dying.”
“And because you were positioning yourself for the CEO role.”
Grant stepped toward her.
“Careful.”
“No.”
She stood straighter.
“You have spent years pretending ambition was something done to you.”
I moved between them before either could turn the hallway into another courtroom.
“Stop.”
They both looked at me.
“I don’t care who resented whom in 2019.”
Grant opened his mouth.
I pointed at him.
“Not now.”
He closed it.
I looked at Evelyn.
“Why eighteen percent?”
“Because that was what Martin negotiated.”
Martin made a sharp sound over the phone.
“That is not what happened.”
Evelyn’s face tightened.
“What?”
“You gave me the percentage.”
“I gave you a ceiling.”
“You gave me eighteen.”
“That is not how I remember it.”
“Then your memory has become convenient.”
Daniel raised a hand.
May you like
“Everyone needs to stop characterizing documents they haven’t reviewed.”
Martin muttered something that sounded like a curse.
