Chapter 4 - The Eleven Percent
Malcolm refused to explain further.
He claimed attorney-client privilege, demanded the photograph and threatened to obtain a court order if Nora interfered with the Halcyon acquisition.
Nora ordered security to escort him out.
Before entering the elevator, he turned toward her.
“Your father believed eleven percent was enough to protect you,” he said. “He was wrong.”
The doors closed.
Nora returned to the dining room.
Daniel had already begun tracing Catherine Lowe.
The name appeared on the event contract, but the listed address belonged to an abandoned office above a closed pharmacy in Queens. The phone number redirected through six countries.
The deposit had been paid from a Whitfield Meridian hospitality account approved by Malcolm’s digital signature.
Either Malcolm had hired a nonexistent planner, or someone had used his credentials.
Both possibilities made him dangerous.
At two in the morning, Grant called again.
This time Nora answered with the photograph from Chicago displayed on her computer.
“Who is Adeline Whitfield?”
Silence returned.
Grant was becoming too familiar with silence.
“So Rosa told you.”
“She told me you had an aunt everyone claims is dead.”
“She is dead.”
“You met her last night.”
“The woman in that photograph is not Adeline.”
“She wears Adeline’s ring.”
Grant’s voice sharpened.
“Where did you get the picture?”
“It fell from our ceiling.”
“Nora, you need to stop investigating.”
“I need my husband to tell me why someone is threatening me.”
“I am trying to keep you alive.”
“By lying?”
“By keeping you outside something that destroyed both our families.”
Nora felt the words strike deeper than she expected.
“Both families?”
Grant breathed slowly.
“Your father did not die in a random accident.”
Nora gripped the edge of the desk.
The police report had described poor visibility, mechanical failure and an overturned boat found near Long Island Sound.
His body had been recovered two days later.
“What happened?”
“I do not know everything.”
“Tell me what you do know.”
“Thomas discovered money moving through Whitfield Meridian accounts. Billions, not millions. The transfers were hidden inside medical relief projects, construction contracts and private insurance networks.”
“Who controlled them?”
“Adeline.”
Nora looked at the woman in the photograph.
“You said she was dead.”
“She disappeared after Thomas confronted her.”
“And three weeks later he died.”
“Yes.”
“You knew this when you married me?”
“No. I learned part of it after my grandfather died.”
“When?”
“Six months ago.”
The same period Grant had become distant.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because the account network became active again. Someone began moving money under your father’s authorization codes.”
“My father is dead.”
“That is why I went to Chicago.”
“The woman in the red coat?”
“She contacted me claiming she could prove who restarted the accounts.”
“Who is she?”
“She called herself Mara.”
Nora remembered the handwritten invitation and the note in the cake box.
“Did Mara warn you about the first slice?”
Grant did not answer.
“Grant.”
“She said there would be a test at our anniversary party.”
“What kind of test?”
“She said if you ate the first slice, the person controlling the accounts would reveal themselves.”
Nora stared at the phone.
“You instructed me to eat food that might have been tampered with?”
“I was told the cake would contain a harmless tracer. Something that could be detected on whoever handled it.”
“And you believed her?”
“No. That is why I told you not to eat delivered food unless Rosa verified it.”
“You also said to eat the first slice.”
“I was trying to sound as though I was following Mara’s instructions. She may be monitoring my calls.”
Nora thought about the vent opening above her desk.
The edited security footage.
The switched knife.
“Is she monitoring mine?”
“Assume she is.”
“What does my eleven percent have to do with this?”
“The Halcyon agreement requires approval from sixty-five percent of Whitfield Meridian shareholders. My family controls fifty-four.”
“And my shares bring you to sixty-five.”
“Yes.”
“Why is Halcyon so important?”
“It holds the surviving records of the account network Thomas discovered.”
Nora understood.
“This is not an acquisition.”
“It is evidence recovery.”
“And the board members opposing you?”
“Some are afraid of what the records contain. Others are involved.”
“Malcolm?”
“I do not know.”
“You are asking me to vote without telling me who we are fighting.”
“I am asking you to stay alive until I return.”
Nora glanced at the invitation.
“Saturday’s party forces all the suspects into one room.”
“Yes.”
“You knew that.”
“I suspected it.”
“And you allowed Evelyn to continue planning.”
“I did not know about the cake.”
“Do you expect me to believe you?”
“No,” Grant said quietly. “But I need you to survive long enough to decide whether you ever will again.”
The call ended.
Daniel had been listening from the doorway.
He entered holding a newly decrypted file from Thomas Hale’s archive.
It contained only one page.
A list of account numbers followed by a sentence in her father’s handwriting.
The controlling vote must never belong to a Whitfield alone.
Beneath it was a line Nora had never seen before.
If my daughter reaches her tenth anniversary, give her the blue ledger.
Nora looked at the date on the invitation.
Her tenth anniversary was forty-eight hours away.
“Where is the blue ledger?” Daniel asked.
Nora turned toward the silver knife.
May you like
Blue wax remained embedded in its engraving.
“It has been inside our wedding gift for ten years.”
