Chương 10
"Jonathan is in federal custody."
I looked at him.
"And?"
"Owen has a concussion and six stitches."
"And?"
Marcus closed the door.
"The trust amendment exists."
I stopped breathing.
He placed a folder on the rolling table beside my bed.
"Your signature is already on it."
For several seconds, I only looked at the folder.
The hospital room hummed around us with the soft mechanical persistence of machines that did not care whether signatures were real.
"Show me."
Marcus opened the folder and placed the first page on the rolling table.
The document was titled an amendment to the Calder Family Continuity Trust.
My name appeared at the bottom.
The signature looked like mine.
Not close.
Mine.
I reached for the paper, then stopped because my fingers had begun trembling again.
"When?"
"Filed with the trust administrator nine days ago."
"I didn't sign this."
"I know."
"Who witnessed it?"
"Two names."
"Real?"
"One is a paralegal at Jonathan's attorney's office."
"And the other?"
"Dead."
I looked up.
Marcus's face stayed flat.
"Dead when?"
"Three years ago."
The monitor beside me recorded my pulse climbing.
I stared back at the page.
The amendment transferred temporary voting control of my personal Calder Aeronautics shares to Jonathan if I became medically incapacitated or died before our daughter's birth.
The language was technical enough to look boring.
That was what made it frightening.
It did not hand him the company outright.
It gave him something more believable.
A bridge.
Enough control to appoint two interim trustees.
Enough leverage to influence the board.
Enough time, perhaps, to move money and restructure ownership while everyone around him was still sending condolences.
"How much power?"
"Not total."
"How much?"
"Enough to create a crisis."
Marcus pointed to a paragraph halfway down.
"If this were accepted as valid and you died, he could exercise your voting rights for up to ninety days while the trust reviewed succession."
"Ninety days is forever."
"In your company, yes."
I leaned back against the pillows.
The fetal monitor shifted slightly.
A nurse had told me not to move too much.
I adjusted it with two fingers.
"Who drafted it?"
"Pierce, Bell and Harker."
"Jonathan's lawyer?"
"One of them."
"Name."
"David Bell."
I knew the name.
Jonathan had brought him to dinner twice.
He was in his early fifties, narrow-faced, aggressively tan, and fond of describing ordinary legal work as strategy.
At our second dinner, he had corrected the sommelier's pronunciation of a French vineyard and been wrong.
I had disliked him for that more than was reasonable.
"Was Bell at the airfield?"
"No."
"Has anyone spoken to him?"
"Not yet."
"Why not?"
"Because federal agents are trying not to destroy whatever evidence he may still have."
I looked at the forged signature.
"How did they get this past our people?"
"That's what I'm working on."
"Our trust counsel should have called me."
"They did."
I stared at him.
"When?"
"Nine days ago."
"I never got a call."
"They called your personal office."
I felt the first real shift beneath the attempted murder itself.
My office was protected by layers of people and systems I had built precisely so important things reached me.
If someone had intercepted that call, Jonathan had not been working alone or guessing.
"Who answered?"
"According to the trust administrator, someone named Rachel."
"There is no Rachel in my office."
"I know."
The room suddenly felt too warm.
"Could the administrator be lying?"
"Possible."
"Could Bell have supplied the number?"
"Possible."
"Could Jonathan have spoofed it?"
"Also possible."
"That is a lot of possible."
Marcus nodded.
"That's why we don't move fast."
I hated that answer because it was correct.
A knock came at the door.
Before either of us could respond, my obstetrician entered carrying a paper cup and a chart.
Dr. Simone Alvarez was usually impossible to rattle.
Tonight she looked tired enough to be honest.
"How's the conspiracy?"
I glanced at Marcus.
"Expanding."
"Of course it is."
She set the coffee down.
"You've got another hour of continuous monitoring before I decide whether I hate everything."
"How is she?"
"Still reactive."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning your daughter is currently behaving in ways I like."
"Currently."
"Yes."
I frowned at her.
"You people are obsessed with that word."
"We like not promising things we can't guarantee."
Marcus moved the trust documents away from the bed.
Dr. Alvarez noticed.
"Work?"
"Attempted theft of a defense company."
She gave me a long look.
"That counts as work."
"I wasn't sure what category it belonged in."
"Not prenatal care."
She adjusted the monitor band.
"Any more contractions?"
"Two."
"Painful?"
"Less than the one in the ambulance."
She checked the tracing.
"Good."
"Am I in labor?"
"Not at the moment."
The relief made me dizzy.
Dr. Alvarez saw it.
"That answer applies to the moment."
"I know."
"You hate uncertainty."
"Everybody hates uncertainty."
"No."
She looked at me over the chart.
"Some people tolerate it."
Marcus made a sound that might have been a cough.
I ignored him.
Dr. Alvarez examined the bruising along my hip, then straightened.
"No leaving tonight."
"I didn't ask."
"You were about to."
"I was thinking."
"Your face asks before your mouth does."
She left after making Marcus promise not to let me work myself into another contraction.
The door closed.
I looked at him.
"Don't."
"I didn't say anything."
"You enjoyed that."
"A little."
I picked up the trust amendment again.
My signature had the slight upward break in the final stroke that I had developed after breaking my wrist in college.
Someone had studied it carefully.
"This wasn't copied from a random document."
Marcus leaned closer.
"What do you mean?"
"The ending."
I pointed.
"I signed differently before I broke my wrist."
"How long ago?"
"Fourteen years."
"So they used something recent."
"Very recent."
My mind moved through the dozens of places my signature existed.
Board approvals.
Vendor contracts.
Government certifications.
Internal authorization.
Personal correspondence.
Digital documents.
Paper documents.
May you like
Too many.
"Could Bell have pulled it from a public filing?"
