Chương 7
“It is legally ice.”
He pulled the blanket over his head.
For ten seconds, life was exactly as it had been the day before.
Then he whispered from beneath the blanket, “Is the tall man coming today?”
I stared at the ceiling.
“Yes.”
His face emerged.
“Here?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because we need to talk first.”
“About us?”
“Yes.”
He frowned.
“That seems rude.”
“To whom?”
“Us.”
I could not argue with that.
At breakfast, Noah told his brothers about Rebecca despite my request that he not repeat what he had overheard until I understood it.
He defended himself by saying I had told him not to tell them last night, and technically it was morning.
Eli called this lawyer behavior.
Noah took it as a compliment.
At seven fifteen, Elaine called.
She had represented me during the last year of the divorce after I fired the first attorney for telling me to accept Harrison’s terms because “men like him don’t lose gracefully.”
Elaine had gray hair, three adult daughters, and no known fear response.
I gave her the short version.
She did not interrupt until I mentioned Rebecca.
Then she said, “Absolutely not.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you do nothing until I see the documents.”
“That was my plan.”
“Good.”
“Harrison wants to meet.”
“He can want a pony.”
I poured coffee.
“Elaine.”
“You are emotionally compromised.”
“So is he.”
“He has twelve lawyers before breakfast.”
“He said he hasn’t contacted them.”
Elaine was silent.
Then she laughed once.
“What?”
“I am trying to imagine Harrison Sterling discovering an internal conspiracy and not immediately surrounding himself with attorneys.”
“He may have changed.”
“People change their haircut.”
I carried my coffee to the window.
The backyard was wet from overnight rain.
A red plastic shovel lay beside the sandbox.
“He met the boys.”
“I assumed that from your message.”
“He wants access.”
“Of course he does.”
“I’m not keeping them from him if this is true.”
“That is not the same as handing him a calendar.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I gripped the mug.
“You’re doing the thing where you become condescending because you’re worried.”
“You’re doing the thing where you confuse guilt with fairness.”
That landed harder than I wanted.
“I’m not guilty.”
“Then why are you defending a man you wanted me to bury in discovery five years ago?”
“I don’t want to defend him.”
“Good.”
“I want to know what happened.”
Elaine’s voice softened by a fraction.
“That I can help with.”
We agreed to meet Harrison at ten in a private conference room in Elaine’s office downtown.
No children.
No assistants.
No media people.
No corporate counsel unless the documents required it.
At nine forty-eight, Harrison arrived alone.
I knew because I watched him through the conference-room glass.
He wore yesterday’s suit.
The tie was gone.
His hair looked as though he had pushed his hands through it repeatedly.
Elaine noticed too.
“He looks terrible,” she said.
“He discovered three children.”
“He’s still handsome.”
I turned to her.
“What?”
“I’m old, not dead.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
Then Harrison entered.
The smile vanished.
He set a slim laptop and two paper folders on the table.
His eyes went to me first.
“Are they okay?”
“Yes.”
“Did they sleep?”
“Eventually.”
He nodded.
Elaine pointed at the chair opposite us.
“Sit.”
He sat.
There were very few people in America who would order Harrison Sterling into a chair as if he were a delinquent teenager.
Elaine was one of them.
“Where did these records come from?” she asked.
“Our archived legal server.”
“How did you access them?”
“I own the company.”
“That was not my question.”
He looked mildly irritated.
Good.
I trusted him more when he was irritated.
“My chief information officer restored an archived mailbox at my request.”
“Whose mailbox?”
“Rebecca Vale’s.”
Elaine’s expression changed.
“With authorization?”
“Corporate authorization.”
“From whom?”
“Me.”
“You personally ordered restoration of a former employee’s mailbox overnight.”
“Yes.”
“You understand there may be retention, privilege, employment, and privacy issues depending on what you accessed.”
“Yes.”
“You understand this meeting does not magically protect those records.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
She held out her hand.
Harrison gave her the folder.
I watched him while she read.
He watched me.
Neither of us spoke.
After several pages, Elaine stopped.
“Who is Margaret?”
Harrison’s face went still.
“My mother.”
Elaine turned the folder toward me.
The email was dated three weeks after my pregnancy notice.
Rebecca had written to Daniel Cross.
M says Harrison is not to be distracted by this until the Mercer issue is contained.
Handle through counsel.
Do not put anything medical in his direct packet.
My mouth went dry.
Below it, Cross had replied with four words.
Understood.
We’ll filter accordingly.
I read the exchange twice.
Then I looked at Harrison.
He had lost all color again.
“My mother knew,” he said.
It was not a question.
Elaine closed the folder.
“She appears to have known something.”
Harrison’s chair scraped backward.
I stood before he did.
“No.”
He looked at me.
“You are not going anywhere.”
“She knew.”
“Yes.”
“She knew you were pregnant.”
“We do not know what she knew.”
“I’m going to find out.”
“Not by storming into her house.”
His eyes flashed.
“You don’t get to tell me how to handle my mother.”
“No.”
I stepped around the table.
“But I get to tell you that if you turn this into a confrontation before we understand the evidence, I will take the boys home and you will not see them today.”
He froze.
The threat hurt both of us.
I hated that immediately.
Elaine said nothing.
Harrison’s voice lowered.
“You would use them to control me.”
“No.”
I forced myself not to look away.
“I would protect them from a man making decisions while furious.”
His jaw worked.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then Harrison sat back down.
He placed both hands flat on the table.
“All right.”
May you like
It cost him something to say it.
I could see that.
