Chương 13
Daniel continued.
“The packet may contain drafts, markups, emails, or authority language that explains the negotiation.”
Lena was already scrolling.
“There are attachments.”
“How many?”
“Thirty-seven.”
Daniel looked pained.
“That is not a reassuring number at midnight.”
“It’s eleven fifty-three.”
He glanced at his watch.
“I liked eleven twenty-six better.”
A nurse passing with a tray looked at us as if we had collectively lost our minds.
Maybe we had.
Melissa shifted in the wheelchair.
“Can someone take me back?”
Grant looked at her immediately.
“Yes.”
She shook her head.
“Not you.”
He stopped.
The nurse behind her glanced between them.
Melissa looked at me.
Not pleading.
Just embarrassed.
“I need to see him.”
I stepped aside.
“Of course.”
The nurse began turning the chair.
Grant followed one step.
Melissa looked back.
“Grant.”
He stopped again.
“Please stay here.”
That hurt him.
I saw it before he covered it.
“All right.”
The nurse wheeled her through the NICU doors.
Grant stared at the locked entrance long after she disappeared.
Then he sat down.
For once, nobody filled the silence.
Lena broke it by clicking open an email from the Brightwell packet.
Her eyes moved quickly.
“This was sent from Evelyn to Martin.”
Evelyn’s posture changed.
“What date?”
“Fourteen months after Robert died.”
Grant leaned forward.
“Read it.”
Daniel looked at Lena.
“Paraphrase unless necessary.”
She nodded.
“You told Martin Brightwell had assumed critical remediation contracts and that refusing equity could expose Aurelius to breach claims.”
Evelyn said nothing.
Lena opened another attachment.
“Martin replied that the trust’s interest could not be diluted without Claire’s consent.”
I looked at Martin’s name on my phone.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“I objected.”
Lena continued reading.
“Evelyn then sent a signed consent form bearing Claire’s authorization.”
My skin went cold.
Grant stood.
“Show me.”
Lena rotated the laptop.
I walked closer.
The document carried my electronic signature.
It was dated three days before the lake house login.
Daniel leaned over the screen.
“Source?”
“Trust portal.”
I looked at Lena.
“Same credentials?”
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
“I need the authentication log.”
“Can you get it?”
“I already requested it.”
Evelyn stared at the consent.
“I never sent that.”
Martin answered immediately.
“Yes, you did.”
“No.”
“It came from your Northstar address.”
“Then it was forwarded or spoofed.”
Grant gave a short laugh.
“Now everyone discovers hacking.”
Evelyn turned on him.
“You think I forged Claire’s consent?”
“I think you buried patient reports.”
Her face went rigid.
“I admitted that.”
“And you concealed an acquisition.”
“I did not conceal it.”
“You withheld it from your own CEO.”
“The approach died before formal review.”
“Because you killed it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Helix wanted Vela.”
The name settled over us.
I looked at her.
“What does Helix have to do with this?”
Evelyn hesitated.
Then she sat again.
“Helix Therapeutics approached two directors privately.”
“When?”
“Seven months ago.”
“What did they want?”
“Northstar’s diagnostics division, certain software assets, and access to Vela’s historical remediation data.”
Grant frowned.
“Why would a therapeutics company care about old infusion software?”
“Because they aren’t interested in the software.”
Lena looked up from her laptop.
“They want the incident data.”
Evelyn nodded.
“Why?”
“Predictive safety modeling.”
Daniel crossed his arms.
“That still doesn’t justify acquiring a division.”
“No.”
Evelyn looked at me.
“They believe Northstar’s historical failure data is more valuable than the patents.”
I stared at her.
“Failure data we supposedly disclosed years ago.”
“Not all of it.”
Grant went still.
“What does that mean?”
Evelyn looked at him.
“Robert kept the raw engineering logs.”
Grant’s face lost color.
“He told me he destroyed them.”
“He told everyone that.”
“Then where are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
I heard my father’s voice again in memory, irritated because I had once thrown away a box of broken Christmas lights.
You don’t discard information just because it stopped being useful today.
At the time, he had been talking about electrical cords.
Now the memory made my stomach tighten.
“He wouldn’t destroy them.”
Everyone looked at me.
Grant’s expression changed.
“You think he kept copies.”
“I think my father kept receipts from restaurants that closed ten years earlier.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No.”
“But he hated destroying records.”
Martin spoke quietly through the phone.
“You’re right.”
I lifted the phone.
“What do you know?”
“Robert gave me a sealed drive.”
Grant moved closer.
“When?”
“Two weeks before hospice.”
“Where is it?”
Martin did not answer.
“Martin.”
“I returned it to him.”
“Why?”
“He changed his mind.”
“About what?”
“He said the person protecting Claire should not be the person who knew where everything was.”
The words raised the hair on my arms.
“Who did he give it to?”
“I don’t know.”
Evelyn looked toward me.
“There were only a few people he trusted at the end.”
I laughed without humor.
“Apparently I wasn’t one of them.”
Her expression softened.
“That is not what this means.”
“Don’t.”
She stopped.
Grant said, “Robert trusted Claire more than anyone.”
I looked at him.
“You don’t get to speak for him.”
He swallowed.
“You’re right.”
The immediate surrender irritated me more than an argument would have.
I looked back at Lena.
“Find the authorization log.”
She was already typing.
“I’m trying.”
Daniel opened the blue folder and removed a yellow legal pad.
“We need to separate three things.”
“No lists.”
“I need a list.”
“Fine.”
He wrote as he spoke.
“One, the historical Vela concealment.”
Evelyn’s mouth tightened.
“Two, the Aurelius ownership manipulation.”
Martin remained silent.
“Three, the recent Brightwell payments and apparent placement of funds into Grant’s account.”
Grant looked at him.
“You believe those are separate?”
“I don’t believe anything yet.”
“That must be peaceful.”
“It is exhausting.”
Lena raised a finger without looking up.
“Four.”
Daniel sighed.
“What?”
“The Helix approach.”
He added it.
“And five.”
Everyone looked at her.
She clicked open another file.
May you like
“The fake consulting invoices involving Melissa’s apartment and vehicle.”
Grant rubbed his face.
