Chương 5
“Dad could have changed his mind.”
“Yes.”
“Did he?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were there.”
“I was not in his legal meetings.”
“But you processed them.”
“Some of them.”
Victoria looked at the documents.
“What about the signatures?”
“That’s worse.”
“Why?”
“The witness on the February restatement is Matthew Creel.”
“So?”
“He didn’t work for the family anymore.”
Victoria frowned.
Olivia opened her laptop.
“Matthew was an assistant in Richard’s office. He resigned in December 2015.”
“The document is February 2016.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe he came back to witness it.”
“Maybe.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“I don’t know what I believe.”
Olivia searched her files.
She found an archived staff memo confirming the resignation date.
Victoria leaned back.
“So Daniel saw this.”
“Possibly.”
“He told us it was fake.”
“He told several people the trust documents had been manipulated.”
“And everyone thought he was high.”
Olivia looked at her.
“He was high sometimes.”
Victoria flinched.
Olivia did not soften it.
“That matters. He was also smart. Those things can both be true.”
Victoria pushed away from the table.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Victoria looked at her.
Olivia’s face had gone hard in a way Victoria had never seen.
“You asked me what Richard did to your family,” she said. “You need to be careful about making the answer too simple.”
Victoria stood.
“Excuse me?”
“Daniel had an addiction. Richard didn’t invent that.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t trust Daniel because Richard told you not to?”
“I said I know.”
“Maybe you didn’t trust him because sometimes he lied to you.”
Victoria’s throat tightened.
“Yes.”
“And maybe Richard used that.”
“Yes.”
“Those are different things.”
“Why are you defending him?”
“I’m not.”
“It sounds like you are.”
“I’m trying not to do what your family always does.”
“What’s that?”
“Decide the truth based on which version hurts less.”
Victoria stared at her.
Olivia looked away first.
A refrigerator motor clicked on.
For several seconds the only sound in the kitchen was the low mechanical hum.
Victoria sat again.
“Sorry.”
Olivia nodded once.
“Me too.”
They continued.
The financial pages were harder.
Olivia understood them.
Victoria did not.
That irritated her, partly because Daniel would have.
Transactions had been routed through a series of art purchases made by the foundation and related private entities. Nothing on a single page proved theft. Values differed between appraisals. Conservation expenses were bundled with transport. Storage fees went through companies whose ownership was not immediately clear.
But a pattern emerged.
Money left the foundation.
Art moved on paper.
Control moved toward entities connected to Richard.
On one page, Olivia found the altered approval bearing her electronic signature certificate.
“I never signed this.”
“Can you prove that?”
Olivia looked at her.
“I can prove I was in Boston that day.”
“Couldn’t you sign remotely?”
“Yes.”
“So?”
“So I need more than a calendar.”
She pulled at one finger of the glove.
“I had pneumonia.”
Victoria waited.
“I was in the hospital.”
“That helps.”
“It helps me. It doesn’t prove someone else used my credentials.”
“Who had access?”
Olivia’s expression became uncomfortable.
“Richard’s office had administrative recovery access to most family systems then.”
“Of course they did.”
“It was normal.”
“Was it?”
“At the time? More normal than it sounds now.”
Victoria looked at the documents again.
One name appeared repeatedly.
Bellweather Advisory LLC.
“Who are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“Richard does.”
“Yes.”
“You approved payments to them?”
“I approved payments to dozens of consultants.”
“Eight million dollars?”
Olivia’s eyes snapped up.
“Not knowingly.”
Victoria regretted the tone.
“Sorry.”
Olivia removed the gloves.
“I should have known.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Neither do you.”
For the first time that night, Olivia looked close to tears.
It lasted only a second.
Then her phone rang.
Richard.
She stared at it.
Victoria said, “Don’t answer.”
Olivia did.
“Hello.”
Richard’s voice was too faint for Victoria to make out.
Olivia listened.
“No.”
More silence.
“No, she’s safe.”
Victoria’s stomach tightened.
Olivia looked at her.
“I’m not telling you where we are.”
Richard spoke for a long time.
Olivia’s expression changed slowly.
“What do you mean, my liability?”
Victoria leaned forward.
Olivia raised one hand.
“I said what do you mean?”
Another pause.
Then Olivia went still.
“No.”
She ended the call.
“What?”
Olivia put the phone down.
“What did he say?”
“He said my approval appears on nineteen transactions.”
Victoria stared.
“How many did you actually approve?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said—”
“I know what I said.”
Olivia stood and began pacing the kitchen.
“I approved some. Maybe most of the underlying expenses. That doesn’t mean I approved the amounts on those pages.”
“He’s threatening you.”
“He doesn’t have to threaten me if the records are real.”
“Olivia.”
“He said if you make this public, his counsel will have no choice but to describe everyone involved.”
“That’s a threat.”
“Yes.”
“You helped me.”
Olivia laughed once.
“Tonight.”
“You came between us.”
“I spent seventeen years helping him before tonight.”
The sentence stayed in the room.
At three in the morning, Victoria called her attorney.
Not the Hayes family attorney.
Her divorce attorney.
The distinction felt ridiculous, but Claire Wexler was the only lawyer Victoria knew who had once told Richard to stop speaking during a meeting.
Claire answered on the fourth ring.
“Someone better be dead.”
“No.”
“Then someone better be getting divorced.”
“No.”
A pause.
“Victoria?”
“I need a lawyer who has nothing to do with my family.”
“You have several.”
“I mean nothing.”
Claire’s voice changed.
“What happened?”
Victoria looked at Olivia.
Olivia shook her head slightly.
Not on the phone.
Victoria understood.
“I found some documents.”
“What kind?”
“Trust. Foundation. Company.”
Another pause.
“Where are you?”
“I’m safe.”
“That was not my question.”
Victoria almost smiled.
“I’m at a friend’s.”
“Who else knows?”
“Richard.”
Claire swore.
May you like
That helped more than reassurance would have.
“Do not send me pictures. Do not email anything. Do not forward anything from a family account. Put the originals somewhere secure and do not write on them, staple them, or let anyone make a scrapbook.”
