Chương 9
“I don’t know.”
“Fine. I’ll know for both of us. Have you eaten?”
“No.”
“Order something.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“That was not a hunger question. It was an instruction.”
Elena lay back against the pillows.
“Tess, he tried to move company money. He used the house as collateral. Vanessa helped him.”
The line went quiet again.
“When did you find this out?”
“Some of it before the trip. Most of it today.”
“You knew something was wrong at the airport.”
“Yes.”
“And you sent me away.”
“Julian was watching.”
“You could have come with me.”
“I needed him not to know.”
Tess exhaled slowly.
“You needed me not to know too?”
“That’s not fair.”
“No. It isn’t. None of this is fair, and I’m trying not to make your catastrophe about my feelings, but I stood six feet from you while you looked like you were dying.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I would have helped.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Elena closed her eyes.
Tess had been her assistant for nine years and her friend for twenty-two. She managed Elena’s schedule, intercepted family demands, remembered birthdays, and knew which meetings Elena avoided because her father’s old associates still called her sweetheart.
Elena had always described their relationship as equal.
At work, Tess still waited for Elena to decide what she was allowed to know.
“You’re right,” Elena said.
Tess sniffed once. “I hate when you say that quickly. It feels suspicious.”
“I’m not trying to end the argument.”
“Good.”
“I was ashamed.”
“Of what?”
“That I might be wrong. That I let it happen. That you’d see how little I knew.”
Tess was quiet for several seconds.
Then she said, “Order soup.”
“What?”
“You haven’t eaten, and your husband is apparently a financial supervillain. Soup is within my current level of expertise.”
Despite herself, Elena smiled.
“Come home tomorrow,” Tess said. “I’ll meet you.”
“Julian may be on the flight.”
“Then I’ll bring a sign with his name misspelled.”
“No signs.”
“Soup, Elena.”
“I’ll order soup.”
“And lock the door.”
“It’s locked.”
“Put a chair under it.”
“That only works in movies.”
“Then put an emotionally supportive chair near it.”
Elena laughed again, softer this time.
After they ended the call, she ordered tomato soup and grilled cheese. The sandwich arrived cut into four perfect triangles. She ate one and left the rest untouched.
At midnight, an email arrived from Vanessa.
We need to speak without Julian.
Elena read it three times.
She forwarded it to Mara.
The response came immediately.
Do not meet alone. Offer video with counsel.
Elena did.
Vanessa refused.
Then she sent a photograph.
The image showed a page on a hotel desk. At the top was the name Pike Street Strategic Holdings. Near the bottom, beneath a paragraph of dense legal language, were two signature lines.
Julian Mercer.
Vanessa Cole.
A handwritten note in the margin read:
VC interest subject to J.M. approval after E.M. relinquishes claims.
Elena enlarged the photograph.
Vanessa had believed she would receive part of the company.
Julian had retained the right to deny it.
Elena typed, Why are you showing me this?
Vanessa answered:
Because he lied to both of us.
Elena stared at the words until the screen dimmed.
Mara called.
“She is protecting herself,” the attorney said.
“I know.”
“Good. Do not confuse common injury with alliance.”
“I don’t.”
“You may, later. Betrayal makes people hungry for witnesses.”
Elena set the phone on speaker and walked to the window.
“What do I say to her?”
“Ask what she has and why she believes it is authentic.”
“It came from Julian’s briefcase.”
“That is not enough.”
“She has the briefcase.”
“Possession is not authentication.”
“She drafted the documents.”
“That helps.”
Elena watched lights move across the harbor.
“What if she destroys them?”
“She might.”
“What if Julian takes them?”
“He might.”
“What if they leave?”
“Then we work with the records we can obtain elsewhere.”
“That sounds passive.”
“It is not passive to avoid making a bad witness disappear.”
Elena turned from the window.
“I want to meet her.”
“I know.”
“I want to hear her explain it.”
“That is emotional, not strategic.”
“I am allowed to be emotional.”
“Yes. You are also allowed to survive being emotional without obeying every impulse it produces.”
Elena disliked Mara in that moment.
It was oddly reassuring.
They arranged a meeting in the hotel lobby the next morning. Mara would join by video. A private investigator retained by counsel would sit nearby, not to intimidate Vanessa but to document the exchange and preserve any materials she surrendered.
Vanessa arrived twenty minutes late wearing the cream coat from the airport.
She stopped when she saw Elena.
For a second, confidence left her face. The woman beneath it looked tired and younger than Elena remembered.
“You brought counsel,” Vanessa said.
“You brought my husband.”
Vanessa glanced around.
“He isn’t here.”
“He’s been here for fourteen months.”
The line sounded too polished after Elena said it. She regretted it immediately.
Vanessa sat.
A server approached. Neither woman ordered anything. The server left two water glasses anyway.
Mara appeared on Elena’s tablet.
Vanessa looked at the screen. “I’m not giving a deposition.”
“No one said you were,” Mara replied.
“I want immunity.”
Mara’s expression did not change. “From whom?”
“The company.”
“Immunity for what?”
Vanessa’s eyes shifted toward Elena.
“I relied on Julian’s representations.”
“That is not an answer,” Mara said.
Vanessa folded her hands. “Pike Street was supposed to be a management buyout.”
“Disclosed to the board?” Mara asked.
“It would have been disclosed at closing.”
“After the transfer?”
“The terms were evolving.”
Mara waited.
Vanessa looked down at the water.
“Julian said Elena wanted out,” she said. “He said she was exhausted by the company and planned to resign after the Vancouver meeting. The transfer would convert her interest into a passive note.”
Elena felt something cold move through her.
“A note worth what?”
May you like
Vanessa named a number.
It was less than one quarter of the company’s last independent valuation.
