Chương 7
“So I control the company.”
Dana spoke carefully.
“You control the voting interest through mechanisms defined by the trust agreement.”
“That sounds like no.”
“It means not by snapping your fingers.”
I nodded.
“Good.”
That answer felt more real than the fantasy I had built on the closet floor.
Marcus continued.
“You can replace designated voting proxies under certain conditions.”
“Who is my current proxy?”
Margaret raised one hand.
“I am.”
I looked at her.
“You vote my father’s shares?”
“Your shares.”
The correction landed strangely.
“Have you ever voted against Gavin?”
“Several times.”
“Did he know?”
“He knew a large shareholder bloc opposed him on certain matters.”
“Did he know it was connected to me?”
“We believed he did not.”
I unlocked my phone.
“I think he knew more than you thought.”
I passed the photograph across the table.
Margaret’s face changed before Marcus even leaned over.
“Where did you get this?”
“Camila.”
Dana’s eyebrows lifted.
“His assistant?”
“Yes.”
I showed them the itinerary next.
Marcus swore softly.
Dana looked at him.
“Professional vocabulary, Marcus.”
“Sorry.”
He did not sound sorry.
Margaret studied the spreadsheet photograph.
“This is not a current trust document.”
“But it was Dad’s?”
“It appears to be a working analysis from an ownership restructuring.”
She zoomed in on the image.
“Your father initialed internal review pages this way.”
“So Gavin had it.”
“Apparently.”
Marcus pointed to the handwritten date.
“Do we know whether that’s Gavin’s handwriting?”
“I do.”
Dana looked at me.
“Recognition is useful but not conclusive.”
“I understand.”
“Do not delete the original message thread.”
“I won’t.”
“Do not ask Camila to alter, retrieve, or destroy anything.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
Dana gave me a level look.
“People do surprising things when they discover their spouse may have committed fraud.”
Something in her tone suggested experience.
I set the phone down.
“What do you know about the money?”
Marcus took over.
“Not enough yet.”
“Last night, Gavin talked about using company funds for a Porsche.”
“Yes.”
“And the necklace.”
“We do not yet know how the necklace was purchased.”
“I pawned my mother’s locket to buy my daughter’s medication yesterday.”
The room went quiet.
I had not meant to say it.
It simply came out.
Margaret’s expression tightened.
Marcus looked at the laptop.
Dana remained still.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
I hated that too.
“I don’t need sympathy.”
“No.”
Her voice stayed even.
“You need accurate information.”
I swallowed.
“Yes.”
Marcus brought up a different screen.
“Gavin’s corporate expense accounts show irregularities.”
“How irregular?”
“We have flagged approximately four hundred eighty thousand dollars over twenty-seven months for further review.”
My stomach turned.
“That’s not two million.”
“No.”
He glanced at me.
“Who said two million?”
“No one.”
The number had floated through the original nightmare in my head, an imagined total large enough to explain everything.
I felt embarrassed by it.
Marcus continued.
“We do not invent totals before tracing them.”
“Good.”
“The irregularities include consulting retainers to small LLCs, luxury travel coded as investor relations, and reimbursements lacking normal documentation.”
“Can those be legitimate?”
“Some could.”
“All?”
“Unlikely.”
Dana interjected.
“Unlikely is not proved.”
Marcus nodded.
“That.”
I looked at Margaret.
“What happens now?”
“That depends partly on you.”
“What can I actually do today?”
“You can revoke my proxy and designate a replacement.”
“Can I designate myself?”
“Yes.”
“Immediately?”
“After execution and verification.”
“And then?”
Margaret studied me.
“You would possess the voting authority your father withheld from you while living.”
There was a warning in the sentence.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning owning power and knowing how to use it are different things.”
Dad’s letter had said almost the same thing.
I looked at her.
“Did he teach you that line?”
“No.”
“He wrote something similar.”
“That sounds like Robert.”
Hearing Dad’s first name in her voice made him briefly real.
I looked away.
Outside the conference room windows, an office worker across the street was watering a plant with a plastic bottle.
The plant looked dead.
I wondered how long he had been trying.
Dana broke the silence.
“There is an emergency board meeting at noon.”
“I know.”
“Gavin has been invited to respond to the preliminary allegations.”
“Am I expected to attend?”
“Not expected.”
Margaret paused.
“But your presence would materially change the meeting.”
I thought of the version Gavin expected.
Me on video.
Smiling.
Explaining away Camila and the necklace.
I asked, “Does the board know who I am?”
“Arthur knows.”
“Who else?”
“General counsel.”
“Why?”
“Your father required disclosure to two officers for continuity.”
“So Arthur knew all these years?”
“Yes.”
Anger came so fast I pushed my chair back.
“He sat in my house.”
“Nora.”
“He held my daughter.”
Margaret let me finish.
“He watched Gavin tell me what we could and couldn’t afford.”
“I cannot speak to what he witnessed privately.”
“He knew I owned half his company.”
“He knew the trust did.”
“That distinction is doing a lot of work.”
“Yes.”
Her honesty stopped me.
I stood and walked to the window.
A bus crawled through traffic below.
“How many people knew enough to let me live like an idiot?”
“Nora,” Dana said, “you did not live like an idiot.”
I turned sharply.
“Please don’t do that.”
She nodded.
“All right.”
Margaret’s face had gone tired.
“Your father believed secrecy protected you from Gavin’s ambition.”
“And everyone cooperated.”
“We followed legal instructions.”
“You could have refused.”
“Yes.”
The room went quiet again.
I looked at her.
“You regret it.”
Margaret’s mouth tightened.
“I regret several things.”
Before I could ask which ones, my phone buzzed.
Camila.
He knows I contacted you.
A second message followed.
I don’t know how.
Then a third.
Please tell me you did not show anyone the spreadsheet yet.
I stared at the screen.
Dana noticed.
“What happened?”
I handed her the phone.
She read the messages without touching the device.
Marcus stood.
Margaret reached for her own phone.
“What does she mean, he knows?”
May you like
“I don’t know.”
Dana looked at me.
