Chương 8
“How did her letter get inside?”
Thomas rubbed his thumb over the envelope seam.
“She put it there afterward.”
“Why?”
“She didn’t trust your father.”
Dad shouted from the hallway.
“Don’t you dare use my mother to justify this.”
Thomas looked toward the door.
“You’ve been using her money to justify everything for twelve years.”
Dad surged forward again.
One of the security officers pushed him back.
Mills stepped into the doorway.
“Sir, if you continue disrupting this conversation, you’re leaving the floor.”
“This man is attempting to manipulate my daughter.”
Mills glanced at me.
“Do you want your father present?”
“No.”
Dad went still.
That hurt him more than being restrained by security.
“Claire.”
“No.”
His face changed in a way I had seen only twice before.
Once when Eleanor died.
Once when I told him I was marrying Daniel.
Fear, stripped of authority.
“I can explain.”
“You’ve had all day.”
“Not like this.”
“That seems to be everybody’s favorite sentence.”
Dad looked at Thomas.
Then at the envelope.
Then back at me.
“If you read that without context, you’ll destroy this family.”
I almost told him the family appeared to be doing fine at that without my help.
The line formed in my head with perfect timing.
I didn’t say it.
I was too tired to perform anger for him.
“Leave.”
He stared at me for another second.
Then security escorted him away.
His shoes struck the hallway floor in quick, hard steps until the sound disappeared.
Thomas watched the doorway after he was gone.
“You always had his stubbornness,” he said.
“That’s not a compliment right now.”
“No.”
He looked back at me.
“It probably never was.”
Renee pulled her chair closer.
“What exactly is the document?”
Thomas held the envelope without offering it yet.
“A letter from Eleanor.”
“To Claire?”
“Yes.”
“Why was it in your possession?”
Thomas exhaled.
“That requires explanation.”
“Then explain,” I said.
His eyes settled on my bandaged ankle.
“What happened?”
“No.”
He looked up.
“You don’t get to ask me questions first.”
“That’s fair.”
“Why did my grandmother give you a letter for me and tell nobody?”
“She told me.”
“Apparently you counted as nobody for the last twelve years.”
His mouth tightened.
“I deserved that.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Agree with me because you think it makes you look decent.”
A faint flush rose along his neck.
That was the first real reaction I had seen from him.
Good.
I wanted him uncomfortable.
“When Eleanor became ill,” he said, “she started separating company problems from family problems.”
“She had cancer.”
“Yes.”
“She was dying.”
“Yes.”
“Say what happened without turning her into a business memo.”
Thomas looked down at his hands.
“She was scared.”
The room quieted.
“That was unusual for her,” he continued.
“She wasn’t scared of dying, or at least she never admitted it to me.”
He paused.
“She was scared of what Richard would do when she wasn’t there to stop him.”
I felt my fingers curl into the blanket.
“What was she stopping?”
“Debt.”
Renee glanced at me.
Thomas continued.
“Your father had already begun borrowing aggressively to expand Shaw Industrial.”
“Dad always borrowed.”
“Not like this.”
“He bought two plants.”
“He bought three.”
I frowned.
“We only own two.”
“We closed the third before you finished college.”
I had never known that.
Thomas leaned forward but kept his elbows off his knees, as if even exhausted he could not completely stop behaving like a boardroom guest.
“The third plant was a disaster.”
“What kind of disaster?”
“Bad acquisition.”
“That doesn’t tell me anything.”
“Environmental remediation, obsolete equipment, inflated revenue projections, and a union contract Richard didn’t understand before signing.”
That sounded like my father and somehow made it worse.
“He lost money.”
“Millions.”
“How many?”
Thomas hesitated.
“Enough that Eleanor intervened.”
“With her own money?”
“With trust assets.”
I turned toward Renee.
She was writing but listening carefully.
“Could she do that?”
“They were her assets then,” Thomas said.
“She controlled the trust before her death.”
“What did Dad do?”
“He promised her it was temporary.”
I laughed once.
The sound came out ugly.
“Of course he did.”
Thomas nodded.
“She covered part of the loss and forced him to sell another division.”
“That was when Dad stopped talking to her for six months.”
“You remember.”
“I remember Mom making me bring casseroles to Grandma because apparently women communicate financial betrayal through baked pasta.”
Renee’s mouth twitched.
Thomas almost smiled.
Then it disappeared.
“Eleanor knew Richard blamed her.”
“For saving his company?”
“For humiliating him.”
That landed.
Dad could forgive almost anything except being made small.
“What does this have to do with me?”
“When she revised her estate plan, she made sure the assets left to you could not be easily pulled into company obligations.”
“I know that part.”
“She also created safeguards your father did not know about.”
“What safeguards?”
Thomas finally extended the envelope.
Officer Mills stepped forward.
“Before she takes that, has it been opened?”
“Yes.”
“By whom?”
“Me.”
“When?”
“Twelve years ago.”
“Anyone else?”
“Eleanor.”
Mills nodded toward Renee.
“Photograph it before handling.”
Renee used her phone to take pictures of the front, back, and sealed edges where the original adhesive had been cut.
Then she asked Thomas to place it on the tray rather than handing it directly to me.
He did.
The old paper made a dry whisper against the plastic.
I stared at it.
My own teenage handwriting looked cheerful.
CLAIRE SHAW.
I had dotted the i badly enough that the ink blob sat above the r.
“That’s definitely mine.”
Thomas nodded.
“Eleanor picked it from the stack after you addressed it.”
“Why?”
“She said nobody would question seeing your handwriting on something meant for you.”
“That sounds paranoid.”
“It was.”
He paused.
“She was also right.”
I reached toward the envelope.
My fingers stopped above it.
“What’s inside?”
“A letter and a photocopy of a shareholder agreement.”
May you like
“What agreement?”
“One your father never filed with the company records.”
