Chương 6
Claire closed the folder.
“I built something too.”
His face softened in a way that might have persuaded a stranger. “I know.”
“No. You know it became useful.”
He sat back.
The hotel employee began folding the breakfast tablecloths. One of the metal legs caught, and she kicked it twice before crouching to fix it. Richard watched her struggle for a moment, perhaps relieved by a problem that did not involve him.
“The acquisition price is not a gift,” he said. “Cypress Ridge is buying assets worth money.”
“I know.”
“You said you came home to give us thirty-one million.”
“I was angry.”
“You were theatrical.”
“That must have been difficult for you.”
“I’m serious, Claire. You are not rescuing us. You are making an investment.”
“I am not making anything. I am recused.”
“Then undo it.”
“I can’t.”
“You can tell them the family dispute is resolved.”
“It isn’t.”
He looked at her for several seconds. “What do you want?”
“The complete trust accounting. Independent review. Repayment. Disclosure to the buyer. Separate counsel for Mom and Vanessa.”
“Your mother does not need a lawyer against me.”
“Then she can have one beside you.”
His voice sharpened. “We are not strangers dividing an estate.”
“No. Strangers would have used contracts.”
Richard pushed the banker’s box toward her. “Take it. Have your review. But tell Cypress Ridge this is a personal matter with no effect on the business.”
“I cannot tell them that until I know it is true.”
“You know the company owes the money. It is recorded as debt.”
“Under a holding company that concealed the beneficiaries.”
“It did not conceal anything.”
“Did the diligence schedule identify me as a creditor?”
“No.”
“Vanessa?”
“No.”
“Then it concealed us.”
Richard stood. The potted palm moved when his shoulder brushed it.
“If the deal collapses,” he said, “the bank will call the company line. The house secures part of it. Seventeen people will lose health insurance immediately, because that is how many have family coverage through us. Teddy Morales’s wife is in chemotherapy. Linda Price has worked there since you were nine. You may be legally correct and still destroy people.”
Claire remained seated.
He had always been best when the facts supported him partially.
She watched him walk toward the lobby doors, leaving the banker’s box by her feet.
At eleven, Claire met Rebecca Sloan at a law office overlooking the river. Rebecca was in her early fifties, with short silver hair and a habit of removing her glasses before saying anything unpleasant.
She reviewed the waiver, the bank statements, and the relevant section of Margaret Mercer’s will.
“The good news,” she said, taking off her glasses, “is that you did not sign this.”
“The bad news?”
“Your father appears to have commingled trust assets, failed to distribute them, loaned them to an entity he controlled, and omitted the beneficiary identities from company disclosures.”
“Appears?”
“I charge extra for certainty.”
Claire looked through the glass wall at the conference room next door. Two men in shirtsleeves were arranging sandwiches around a projector.
“Can the trust money be recovered at closing?”
“Possibly. But first we determine what the trust owned, what was transferred, where it went, what was repaid, and whether your mother participated as co-trustee.”
Claire turned back. “Co-trustee?”
Rebecca tapped the will. “Upon Margaret’s death, Richard and Ellen were named together.”
“My mother never mentioned that.”
“She signed at least three account documents.”
“Did she have authority to move the money?”
“With your father, yes. Not to treat it as their own.”
“What about Vanessa?”
“She may have received her distribution indirectly. That does not necessarily discharge the trustees’ duties, especially if she was not informed and no accounting was provided.”
Claire thought of the hidden engagement-ring hand.
“Could my father go to prison?”
Rebecca put her glasses back on. “That is not the first question.”
“It is mine.”
“Civil breach of fiduciary duty is clear enough to investigate. Criminal exposure would depend on intent, documentation, representations, and what happened to the funds. I am not going to threaten your father with prison to improve your bargaining position.”
“I did not ask you to.”
“You asked within ten minutes.”
Claire looked down.
Rebecca’s voice lost some of its edge. “Most people do. Especially when the person is family. They want the worst possible consequence named, and then they want reassurance it will never happen.”
“I don’t know what I want.”
“That is more useful.”
Rebecca proposed a forensic accountant, a preservation notice, and a written demand for records. She also advised Claire not to enter the Mercer Woodworks facility or access its systems through old family credentials.
“Your employer’s deal and your trust claim are now crossing the same floor,” she said. “Do not be the person carrying gasoline between them.”
Claire left with a legal pad full of tasks and no sense of progress.
In the parking garage, she found Ellen waiting beside the rental car.
Her mother wore a tan raincoat despite the humid heat. She held a paper grocery bag against her chest.
“How did you know where I was?”
“Your father mentioned Rebecca’s name.”
“He sent you?”
“No.”
Claire unlocked the car but did not open the door. “Are you a trustee?”
Ellen looked toward the garage exit. “Technically.”
“That is not a technical question.”
“I signed what Richard asked me to sign.”
“For four years?”
“I don’t remember every paper.”
“You wrote notes on the statements.”
Ellen’s face changed.
Claire opened the rear door and placed her legal folder on the seat. “You knew the money was mine.”
“I knew some of it was.”
“How much?”
“Your father handled the amounts.”
“You called me and lied about losing the house.”
“I said I was afraid we could lose it.”
“You said strangers would be in it by Thanksgiving.”
“That could still happen.”
May you like
“In eleven weeks, maybe. Not Monday.”
Ellen set the grocery bag on the hood of the car. Inside were two ham sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, a jar of sliced peaches, and a plastic container of potato salad. Food from the house, packed as if Claire were leaving for college.
