Chương 6
Nora sat.
“Do you want the company saved?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want Hunter saved?”
Kylie did not answer quickly enough.
Nora nodded once.
“That’s the problem.”
By nine, clips from the dinner had not appeared online, but rumors had reached Northline.
Celia called Kylie directly.
“I know your attorney told you not to discuss evidence,” she said. “I’m not asking you to. I am asking whether you are willing to speak with independent board counsel about the investment conditions.”
“With Mara present.”
“Of course.”
“Is Hunter still chief executive?”
“Technically. His authority is suspended pending review.”
“What happens today?”
“The board will assess liquidity.”
“Can you make payroll?”
Celia paused.
“Not comfortably.”
Kylie closed her eyes.
“How did it get this bad?”
“That is what we are trying to determine.”
“Hunter knew?”
“He signed the cash forecasts.”
Kylie thought of the celebration dinner. The engraved menus. The private room. The champagne Hunter ordered before the transfer had closed.
“What was last night supposed to celebrate?”
“Closing confidence.”
“That isn’t a thing.”
“No,” Celia said. “It is not.”
At noon, Kylie met Mara and Northline’s independent counsel in a conference room at Mercer Family Capital. Her father did not attend.
His absence had been deliberate.
Arthur understood that if he sat in the room, Hunter’s lawyers would later claim the divorce and investment cancellation were coordinated retaliation. He remained upstairs while Kylie described how she found the messages, the loan documents, and the false email account.
She handed over copies through Mara.
The original tablet had already been imaged by a forensic consultant.
The black folder from dinner sat on the conference table. Without candlelight and wine, it looked ordinary.
Northline’s counsel, a gray-haired attorney named Daniel Cho, asked careful questions.
“When did you first learn about the bridge loan?”
“Six days ago.”
“Did Hunter ever discuss a borrowing limit?”
“No.”
“Did you receive any benefit from the funds?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Were funds deposited into a joint account?”
“Some were transferred through one.”
Daniel glanced at Mara.
“How much?”
“Four hundred and eighty thousand dollars,” Mara said. “The money entered and left the account within twenty-four hours.”
Kylie turned toward her.
“What?”
Mara’s expression tightened slightly.
“Our forensic accountant found it this morning.”
“Where did it go?”
“An entity called H.R. Strategic Consulting.”
Kylie knew the initials.
Hunter Reed.
He rarely used his middle name except on legal forms.
“What is that?”
“We do not know yet.”
Daniel made a note.
Kylie felt heat rise beneath her collar.
She had prepared herself for debt. She had not prepared for money moving through her own account.
“Why didn’t the bank alert me?”
Mara said, “You received electronic statements.”
“To the false email?”
“No. To the real one.”
Kylie stared at her.
She had not opened the statements.
Hunter handled household finances because he liked spreadsheets and she hated passwords. Each month, she saw the bank notification and archived it.
The shame came swiftly.
Mara seemed to recognize it.
“Do not confuse failing to detect fraud with causing it.”
Kylie looked away.
Across the glass wall, employees moved through the office carrying laptops and coffee cups. Her father’s firm continued with its day. Meetings began. Calls ended. Someone laughed near the printers.
“Where did the consulting money go?” she asked.
“We’re tracing it.”
The answer arrived sooner than expected.
H.R. Strategic Consulting had paid three hundred thousand dollars toward a condominium deposit in Miami. The purchase agreement listed Hunter as buyer.
The remaining funds had covered personal credit cards, private travel, and payments to a fertility clinic.
Kylie learned that last detail at four in the afternoon.
She was in her father’s office by then. Arthur stood at the windows with his jacket off, reading the report.
He had hugged her when she entered.
He had not said he warned her.
That restraint made her cry again, briefly and angrily, because she had spent the morning preparing to hate him for being right.
Now he handed her the page.
“Fertility clinic,” Kylie said.
Arthur looked at the floor.
She read the transaction dates.
The first payment had been made eleven months earlier.
Kylie and Hunter had been trying to conceive then.
They had spent eight months visiting a specialist on the Upper East Side. Kylie endured blood tests, injections, and two unsuccessful rounds of intrauterine insemination. Hunter complained about the waiting room but attended most appointments.
After the second failure, he held her in the car while she cried and said they could stop whenever she wanted.
The payment in the report was not to their clinic.
It was to one in California.
“Isabelle froze her eggs three years ago,” Kylie said.
Arthur remained silent.
“She told me. She was worried because her mother had early menopause.”
The second payment coincided with Isabelle’s supposed trip to Portland.
Kylie lowered herself into a chair.
Her father came around the desk but did not touch her.
“They may have used IVF,” she said.
“We do not know that.”
“The amount is too high for a consultation.”
“We still do not know.”
“Hunter paid with money borrowed against my house.”
Arthur’s face tightened.
Kylie pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead.
For months she had blamed her body for failing to create the child Hunter said he wanted. She had apologized after each negative test. She had asked whether he resented her.
He had said no.
Perhaps he had meant it. Perhaps by then, he had already found another plan.
“I’m going to be sick.”
Arthur moved the wastebasket beside her chair.
She did not vomit. She sat bent forward, breathing through her mouth while her father stared at a painting neither of them liked but neither had removed because it was purchased by his late business partner.
After several minutes, Arthur said, “You should go home with Nora.”
“I need to talk to Isabelle.”
“No.”
Kylie looked up.
May you like
Her father’s voice remained low. “Not today.”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
