The weight of someone who had been in enough rooms where terrible things were true and had never fully developed immunity to the moment before the response. “Your husband,” he said. “I don’t know. Maybe.” She was staring at the far wall. “He threw me out last night because of forged evidence of financial fraud.
He told me the child wasn’t his. He’s been building a case against me for I don’t know how long. Long enough to plant financial records. Long enough to brief lawyers.” She stopped. “Long enough to start poisoning me. Or someone did it for him.” “Yes.” “Or that.” She turned to look at him. Her eyes were dry.
She’d used up whatever she had for crying somewhere around the third hour on the road. “He’s been positioning himself to take control of Hale Biotech for 2 years. My father’s company. My inheritance. If I die, if the baby dies, and then I die from whatever complications they were building toward, the estate falls to him. Our prenuptial specifies conditional inheritance.
The child changes everything. How much is everything? She was quiet for a moment. The trust activates at birth. Nearly 300 million dollars. Ronan was very still. “He doesn’t know I know about the trust full terms.” She continued. “My father’s lawyer structured it privately. Grant knows about the company holdings. He doesn’t know about the secondary fund.
” She exhaled. “Or he didn’t.” “I don’t know what he knows now.” Ronan stood up. Moved to the window. There were windows in this room, she realized. Small and high. Beginning to show the gray beginning of dawn at their edges. He stood with his back to her for a moment. “I’m going to make some calls.” He said. “I didn’t ask you to do anything.
” He turned. “No, you didn’t.” “I don’t know what you want from this.” “I don’t want anything from this.” “Men like you don’t stop convoys in the rain for nothing.” “I stopped because you were in the road.” He said it with the same flatness she’d heard in the car. But there was something under it now.
Something he wasn’t offering her access to. “That was the only calculation I made.” She held his gaze. “I’ll need a phone.” She said. “And access to an attorney who isn’t on my husband’s payroll.” “And I need to know what Dr. Yuan found to be secure and not findable by anyone looking for me in the next 48 hours.” “All manageable.
” “I also need to know who you’re going to tell.” He frowned slightly. “About?” “About me.” “About the results.” “About where I am.” She watched his face. “Because the person who arranged the poisoning is going to notice I didn’t die on that road last night.” “They’re going to start looking. And if they find out whose house I’m in.
” “They won’t.” “You sound very sure.” “I am.” “Why?” “Because” is my house. He said it without particular emphasis. Just as a fact. And nothing leaves it that I don’t clear. She looked at him for a long moment. The room was getting lighter at the window edges. The monitor beeped its patient rhythm. Her daughter’s heart working steadily away inside her.
Four chambers doing their ancient mechanical work. All right, she said. Mom. His name was Cole Prater. He was 41 years old, had two kids in Wicker Park, had worked as a senior forensic accountant for Hale Biotech for 6 years, and had disappeared from his apartment 17 days ago. His supervisor had filed a missing person’s report with the city.
The city had flagged it non-priority. There was no evidence of foul play at the apartment, and no criminal history on Prater’s record, and the detective assigned to the case had 47 open files on his desk. Ronan’s investigator, a compact, quiet man named Sergey, who communicated primarily through documents and a dry, minimal verbal shorthand, put this information in front of Ronan at 9:00 in the morning in the room they used as an office on the east wing of the estate.
Violeta was sleeping again. The monitor was transmitting to Dr. Yuan’s tablet. “He filed an internal complaint 6 weeks ago,” Sergey said. He slid a printed page across the desk. “Flagged anomalies in four subsidiary accounts. The complaint went to the compliance officer.” Ronan looked at the page. “Who’s the compliance officer?” “Was.
” “Martin Orell. He resigned 3 weeks ago. Left the city.” “Find him.” “Working on it.” Sergey slid another page across. “The accounts Prater flagged, they’ve been restructured since his disappearance. Clean on the surface, but the transaction timing is off if you know what you’re looking at, and Prater left a backup.
He tapped the page. He emailed a compressed file to a personal account 3 days before he went missing. Small file, encrypted. You have it? I have it. We’re working the encryption. Sergey paused. There’s something else. Ronan waited. Prater wasn’t the only one flagging anomalies. There was a second internal inquiry filed by someone in the Hale Biotech legal department.
Filed under a junior attorney’s credentials. Sergey laid a third page down. But the language in the filing doesn’t read like a junior attorney. Too specific, too structured. Ronan looked at the page. The filing was dated 14 months ago. It was about the board vote that had shifted operational control of Hale Biotech’s executive committee.
