Chapter 6 - Seventy-Two Hours.
By six the next morning, Julian's townhouse had become a war room.
Three investment bankers occupied the dining room.
Two attorneys had taken over the library.
The chief financial officer had not gone home.
Rachel Monroe sat at the kitchen table with Sarah, drinking coffee that had gone cold forty minutes earlier.
Leo slept upstairs.
Sarah had checked on him twice.
Each time, she stood in the doorway longer than necessary.
The sight of him breathing peacefully was the only thing in the house that felt normal.
Downstairs, eighty-four million dollars, eleven percent of a corporation, and seven years of stolen choices were being reduced to columns on legal pads.
Rachel slid a document toward Sarah.
"This is the trust provision that matters."
Sarah read it slowly.
The legally recognized custodial parent or parents of Leo Vance would direct the voting proxy attached to his trust shares.
If two recognized parents existed, both signatures were required unless a court appointed one parent sole proxy authority.
Sarah looked up.
"So even if my rights are restored, Julian and I have to agree."
"Yes."
"And if we don't?"
"The shares abstain."
Sarah frowned.
"Which helps Arthur."
Rachel nodded.
"Right now, yes."
Julian entered carrying another stack of papers.
His tie was gone.
His sleeves were rolled up.
He looked less like the man from the ballroom and more like someone who had finally run out of walls to hide behind.
"The banks want collateral we cannot provide without selling the research properties," he said.
Rachel looked at him.
"How long?"
"Sixty-six hours now."
Sarah hated the clock immediately.
"What happens if you miss it?"
"Sterling Capital can begin enforcement."
"Meaning?"
"They can force asset sales."
"And Arthur can tell the board I created the crisis by ending the engagement."
Sarah stared at him.
"He planned this."
Julian sat across from her.
"I think he planned several possible outcomes."
Rachel nodded.
"People like Arthur rarely build one door."
"They build a hallway."
Sarah looked again at the trust language.
"Then stop walking down his hallway."
Julian glanced at her.
"What does that mean?"
"You're treating the company like the only thing he can threaten."
"Eight thousand employees would disagree."
"I'm not saying ignore them."
Sarah tapped the forged custody paper.
"I'm saying this started before the company crisis."
"If we prove what happened seven years ago, maybe we change the leverage now."
Rachel leaned back.
"She's right."
Julian almost smiled.
"You enjoy saying that."
"More than you know."
The subpoena response from St. Matthew's arrived at 8:15.
The hospital no longer had full donor entrance logs from seven years earlier.
But it had retained parking records because the donor garage had been operated by an outside contractor.
One vehicle registered to the Sterling Foundation entered the garage on the morning Sarah signed the temporary guardianship form.
It remained there for fifty-three minutes.
The registered driver was Arthur Sterling.
Sarah stared at the record.
"So he lied."
Rachel corrected her.
"He admitted being there."
"He lied when he said Conrad merely asked him to help with a family crisis."
"Maybe."
"We need more."
Julian's head of security entered the kitchen.
His name was Daniel Cross, a former federal investigator with a quiet voice and a habit of noticing everything.
He placed a folder on the table.
"We found Gregory Pike."
Julian stood.
"Where?"
"New Jersey."
"He checked into a motel outside Princeton under his own name yesterday."
Rachel frowned.
"A man trying to disappear doesn't usually use his own name."
Daniel nodded.
"Which is why I don't think he's trying to disappear."
"I think he's waiting for someone to find him."
Sarah felt a chill.
"Or someone wants us to think that."
Daniel looked at her.
"Also possible."
Julian reached for his jacket.
Rachel stopped him.
"You are not going there alone."
"I wasn't planning to."
"Good."
"Because Sarah is coming."
Sarah blinked.
Rachel stared at both of them.
"That was not where I thought this was going."
Sarah looked at Julian.
"Why me?"
"Gregory ignored my calls for months."
"He processed your denied visit requests."
"If he sees you, he may understand what this actually did."
Sarah considered it.
"Fine."
Rachel sighed.
"I hate clients with courage."
The motel sat behind a gas station and a chain restaurant.
Gregory Pike opened the door after Julian knocked twice.
He looked exhausted.
He had grown a beard since his last corporate photograph.
His eyes moved past Julian and stopped on Sarah.
He went pale.
"You found her."
Sarah's stomach tightened.
"You know me?"
Gregory stepped backward.
"Come in."
The room smelled of coffee and stale air.
A laptop sat open on the desk beside three flash drives.
Daniel remained near the door.
Julian stood with his arms crossed.
"You notarized a guardianship form I never signed."
Gregory closed his eyes.
"I know."
"Why?"
"Because Arthur Sterling told me the original authorization had been misplaced and that you had approved a replacement."
Julian's voice hardened.
"And you believed him?"
Gregory laughed bitterly.
"No."
"Then why did you do it?"
Gregory looked toward Sarah.
"Because he showed me the old file."
Sarah's skin went cold.
"What old file?"
"Your file."
Gregory sat on the edge of the bed.
"My father kept copies of everything."
"Hospital forms."
"Court scans."
"Payment records."
"Correspondence between Conrad Vance and Arthur Sterling."
Julian stepped closer.
"Where is it?"
"Gone."
"What does that mean?"
"Arthur took it."
Gregory rubbed both hands over his face.
"He came to my office three months ago."
"He said Victoria would soon marry you and that certain family documents needed to be regularized before the wedding."
"He showed me a letter written by my father."
Sarah's voice became quiet.
"What did it say?"
Gregory looked at her.
"That the custody transfer had never been legally valid."
The room went silent.
Sarah's knees weakened.
Julian caught the back of a chair but did not sit.
"Your father knew?"
"Yes."
"For seven years?"
"I think so."
Sarah stared at Gregory.
"And you still notarized another fake document."
Gregory flinched.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Arthur threatened my father."
Sarah's expression hardened.
"Your father is seventy-four years old and lives in Florida."
"He has dementia."
Gregory swallowed.
"Arthur said he would make sure an old professional complaint became a criminal referral."
"He said my father would spend whatever years he had left being investigated and publicly blamed."
Sarah's voice sharpened.
"For something he did."
"Yes."
Gregory looked down.
"I was a coward."
"I told myself the guardianship form would never be used."
"Then Victoria filed it in court."
Julian leaned over him.
"Where are the payment records?"
Gregory pointed to one of the flash drives.
"Some are there."
Daniel picked it up with a handkerchief and placed it in an evidence bag.
"What do they show?" Sarah asked.
Gregory answered.
"A Sterling Foundation consulting payment to my father's firm three days after Leo left the hospital."
"How much?"
"Four hundred thousand dollars."
Julian stared at him.
"For what consulting?"
"There is no work product."
Sarah closed her eyes.
Four hundred thousand dollars.
The number felt obscene.
She remembered counting quarters for the laundromat while Leo lived three neighborhoods away in a guarded Vance residence.
She remembered choosing between a bus pass and groceries.
Someone had been paid four hundred thousand dollars in the same week her son was taken from her.
"Will you testify?" Rachel asked through the speakerphone.
Gregory's face tightened.
"Yes."
"Under oath?"
"Yes."
"And turn over the drives?"
"Yes."
A car door slammed outside.
Daniel moved immediately to the window.
A black sedan had pulled into the lot.
Gregory stood too quickly.
"That's him."
Julian turned.
"Who?"
"Arthur's lawyer."
The sedan door opened.
A man in a gray suit stepped out carrying a briefcase.
Gregory's face drained of color.
"He said he wouldn't come until tonight."
Sarah looked at him.
"You were meeting him?"
Gregory said nothing.
Julian understood first.
"You called us here and called them too."
Gregory looked trapped.
"I didn't know who would protect me."
Julian's voice became cold.
"So you invited both sides."
"I needed leverage."
Sarah stared at him.
"Everyone keeps using that word."
Daniel opened the motel room's back window.
"We leave now."
Julian grabbed the evidence bag.
Gregory reached for it.
"That's mine."
Sarah stepped between them.
"No."
Gregory looked at her.
"You don't understand."
Sarah's voice was steady.
"I understand exactly."
"You spent seven years treating the truth like something you could trade."
"I'm done bidding for it."
They left through the back and crossed a narrow strip of grass toward Daniel's vehicle.
Behind them, the gray-suited attorney entered the motel room.
Five minutes later, Gregory's phone rang.
He stared at the screen.
Arthur Sterling.
Gregory looked at Sarah.
"What do I do?"
Sarah answered before Julian could.
"Pick up."
Gregory did.
Arthur's voice came through clearly.
"Did Vance get the drive?"
Gregory closed his eyes.
"Yes."
There was a pause.
Then Arthur said something none of them expected.
"Good."
The line went dead.
Julian looked at Daniel.
Daniel looked at the evidence bag.
May you like
Sarah felt the first true wave of dread.
Arthur had wanted them to find the drive.
