Chương 7
“Sloan, can I speak with you privately?”
Julian immediately said, “About what?”
Darcy gave him a level look.
“Privacy generally works better if the other person doesn’t attend.”
He looked at me.
I picked up the blue folder.
“We’ll be in the study.”
His expression changed at the word we.
I hated noticing that.
Upstairs, Darcy closed the study door.
I sat behind my desk.
The locked drawer hung open because I had forgotten to shut it properly earlier.
Darcy pushed it closed with her shoe.
“I want you out of the financial part of this for the rest of today.”
I stared at her.
“That’s not happening.”
“I didn’t say emotionally.”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
“Yes.”
She sat opposite me.
“Which is why I’m saying it.”
“My money is in this.”
“Some of your money may be.”
“My husband moved forty thousand dollars.”
“And now there may be a fraud involving his company, outside lenders, potentially misleading documents, and possibly his family’s business.”
“So?”
“So you stop touching things.”
I leaned back.
“That sounds remarkably convenient for Julian.”
“It isn’t for Julian.”
She folded her hands.
“It’s for you.”
“I’m not a child.”
“No, you’re an accountant who is furious at her husband and therefore particularly likely to believe she can organize her way out of a situation that is no longer just financial.”
I looked away.
On my desk sat a ceramic pencil cup I had bought at a craft fair five years earlier because the woman selling it looked miserable and I felt guilty walking past.
It was ugly.
I had never thrown it away.
Darcy waited.
“That was rude,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Accurate, though.”
“Yes.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
I rubbed my thumb along the blue folder’s edge.
“What do I do?”
“Preserve your own records.”
“That’s it?”
“For now.”
“And the house?”
“You own the holding company unless something in these lending documents says somebody has falsely represented otherwise.”
“Can they take it?”
“Not because Julian says they can.”
“That isn’t the same answer.”
“No.”
She leaned forward.
“If he forged anything connected to Bellweather, that changes the situation.”
My stomach tightened.
“Do you think he did?”
“I think you should not decide what he did before we see the documents.”
Downstairs, something slammed.
I went rigid.
Darcy stood.
Then Camille’s voice came faintly through the ceiling.
“It was the refrigerator door.”
Darcy looked at me.
“You see why I photographed your wrist?”
I did not answer.
She opened the study door.
Julian was at the bottom of the stairs.
He had heard enough to know we were finished.
“Sloan.”
“What?”
“I need to show you something.”
Darcy came down behind me.
Julian looked irritated by her presence but did not object.
He had opened his laptop on the kitchen island.
A folder labeled LATTICE FINANCING sat on the desktop.
Eleanor and Camille were on either side of him.
“I found the Bellweather document.”
My heart seemed to drop lower in my chest.
“Open it.”
Julian clicked.
A PDF appeared.
It was a financial statement listing personal and affiliated assets.
Bellweather Property Holdings LLC appeared halfway down the second page.
Estimated real estate value followed.
Then a line under ownership.
Sloan Mercer, 100%.
Darcy leaned closer.
“That’s accurate.”
Julian exhaled.
I did too, though I had not realized I was holding my breath.
Then Camille scrolled lower.
A check mark appeared beside a statement declaring that listed assets might be considered in assessing guarantor financial capacity.
Darcy read the paragraph twice.
“That is not a pledge.”
Julian nodded too quickly.
“I told you.”
She held up one finger.
“It is also not something I’m going to interpret conclusively from one document.”
His shoulders dropped again.
Eleanor looked at me.
“Did you authorize him to include your company?”
“No.”
Julian turned.
“It was just a financial disclosure.”
“You used my asset to make yourself look stronger to a lender.”
“I disclosed our financial position.”
“My company is not our financial position.”
“We’re married.”
“That sentence is doing a lot of work for you today.”
He pushed the laptop away.
“I’m not saying I handled it well.”
Camille made a sound.
Julian turned on her.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No, say it.”
“I was going to say that might be the first accurate thing you’ve said all morning.”
“Could you stop treating this like entertainment?”
Her face tightened.
“You think I’m entertained?”
“You’ve hated this company since I started it.”
“I hated that you were hiding it.”
“You said the idea was stupid.”
“I said building a labor marketplace without enough working capital was dangerous.”
“Same thing.”
“No, Julian, they are only the same thing if you think disagreement is betrayal.”
He stared at her.
She stared back.
Neither looked away.
Then Eleanor said, “Who is Daniel Reese?”
The question pulled everyone back.
Julian sat down.
“I told you.”
“No.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“You told us who he claimed to be.”
Julian looked at the false email domain again.
“I don’t know.”
“How did he find you?”
“At a conference.”
Camille frowned.
“You just said you didn’t meet him at the conference.”
“I didn’t.”
“Then what does that mean?”
Julian rubbed his eyes.
“There was an online attendee portal.”
“What conference?”
“Mid-Atlantic Healthcare Innovation Summit.”
“When?”
“September.”
Camille looked at him.
“You said Chicago in October.”
Julian froze.
I watched him replay his own earlier answer.
“That was another event.”
“You weren’t at that one either.”
“I registered.”
Darcy spoke.
“Slow down.”
Julian looked irritated.
She pointed at the laptop.
“Did Daniel first contact you through the September event platform?”
“Yes.”
“Do you still have the original message?”
“Probably.”
“Find it without deleting or forwarding anything.”
Julian opened his email.
His search took less than a minute.
The earliest message appeared on September eighteenth.
Daniel’s first note was ordinary enough that I might have ignored it.
May you like
He complimented Julian’s panel comments about outpatient staffing shortages and asked whether LatticeCare was raising outside capital.
Camille read over his shoulder.
