Chapter 4 - The Woman in the Glass Tower.
The next morning, Rebecca sat in Nora Chen's thirty-seventh-floor conference room while rain pressed silver lines against the glass.
Nora had printed the trust documents, company bylaws, and a preliminary summary from the audit committee.
None of them looked dramatic.
Paper rarely did.
That was one reason Daniel had underestimated it for so long.
"The audit committee is independent," Nora said.
"You cannot direct it."
"I don't want to."
"Good."
Nora tapped a page.
"But the trust is a significant secured stakeholder under the old rescue package, so if the company discovers conduct that affects solvency or collateral value, we may receive notices."
Rebecca read the summary.
The questionable expenses stretched across fourteen months.
Luxury hotel charges.
Private aviation upgrades.
A consulting entity called Northstar Image Partners.
Residential furnishing invoices.
Jewelry categorized as executive relationship expenses.
Rebecca stared at that line.
"Jewelry?"
Nora's mouth flattened.
"Forty-eight thousand dollars."
Rebecca thought of Chloe's wrist at the dining table.
A bracelet had flashed whenever she lifted her wineglass.
Rebecca had noticed it because Daniel once tried to buy the same vintage piece for Rebecca's anniversary and complained about the price.
"Do we know where it went?"
"No."
"And we should not assume."
"Correct."
Rebecca pushed the page away.
"I don't want Ethan seeing this until there are facts."
Nora studied her.
"He is twenty-six."
"He is still our son."
"Those things can both be true."
Rebecca leaned back.
The truth was that she was not protecting Ethan from facts.
She was protecting the remaining architecture of his childhood from collapsing all at once.
The penthouse was gone.
His father's affair was real.
His grandfather had saved a company Daniel claimed to have built alone.
Now there was a possibility Daniel had treated corporate money as a private wallet.
Every revelation rewrote something Ethan thought he knew.
Rebecca did not know how much rewriting one person could absorb in a week.
Her phone buzzed.
Chloe.
Rebecca declined the call.
It rang again.
Nora raised an eyebrow.
"Persistent."
"Young."
"Those are not the same thing."
Rebecca answered.
"What is it, Chloe?"
Chloe sounded as if she had been crying, though she was trying hard not to let it show.
"Daniel says you froze his cards."
Rebecca looked at Nora.
"I did no such thing."
"His corporate card isn't working."
"Then he should call the company."
"He says you told them to do it."
"I didn't."
Chloe lowered her voice.
"He is downstairs arguing with someone from finance."
Rebecca frowned.
"Where are you?"
"At a hotel."
"Why?"
"Because the penthouse is gone."
The obviousness of the answer almost sounded tragic.
"Daniel has other places to stay," Rebecca said.
"Apparently not the way he described them."
Nora mouthed, What does she want?
Rebecca shook her head.
"Chloe, why are you calling me?"
"Because I need to know whether the company paid for my apartment."
Rebecca went still.
Nora leaned forward.
"What apartment?" Rebecca asked.
"Daniel rented a place for me last year."
"In whose name?"
"Mine."
"Who made the payments?"
"He said his management company."
Rebecca closed her eyes briefly.
"Do you have the lease?"
"Yes."
"Do not send it to me."
"Why not?"
"Because I am not your lawyer and I am not investigating Daniel."
"Then who do I send it to?"
Rebecca looked at Nora.
Nora scribbled AUDIT COMMITTEE COUNSEL on a legal pad.
"If you believe company funds may have been used, you should speak to independent counsel and, if appropriate, the audit committee's counsel," Rebecca said.
Chloe was quiet.
"Is he in trouble?"
"I don't know."
"You know more than I do."
"That does not mean I know enough to answer."
Chloe breathed out shakily.
"He told me you were controlling and jealous."
Rebecca looked at the rain.
"That sounds efficient."
"What does that mean?"
"It means a man does not have to explain his choices if he can convince everyone the woman questioning him is the problem."
Chloe did not reply.
Rebecca immediately regretted saying even that much.
She did not want to recruit Chloe into her anger.
"Get your own lawyer," Rebecca said.
"And protect your own records."
"Are you going to protect him?"
Rebecca almost asked why Chloe cared.
Then she understood.
Chloe was not asking whether Rebecca would protect Daniel.
She was asking whether Rebecca had always protected him.
"Not anymore," Rebecca said.
The call ended.
Nora stared at Rebecca.
"She may be a witness."
"She may also be terrified."
"Those are not mutually exclusive."
Rebecca stood and walked toward the window.
Below them, the city looked clean and orderly because distance erased the details.
Daniel had always loved views from high floors.
He liked seeing the world reduced to manageable geometry.
People became dots.
Problems became traffic.
Consequences became somebody else's floor.
Rebecca's phone buzzed again.
This time it was a bank alert from an old joint household account.
A transfer request for nine hundred thousand dollars had been initiated.
Rebecca stared at the screen.
The account required dual approval for transfers over two hundred fifty thousand.
Daniel knew that.
He had tested the rule years ago during a tax payment.
Yet he had initiated the request anyway.
Nora saw Rebecca's face.
"What happened?"
Rebecca showed her the alert.
"Do not approve it," Nora said.
"I wasn't going to."
"Call the bank."
Rebecca called.
The private banking officer confirmed that Daniel had requested the transfer forty minutes earlier.
The destination was an account titled DKM Strategic Ventures.
Rebecca did not recognize it.
"When was that destination account added?" she asked.
The banker checked.
"Yesterday."
Rebecca felt a chill.
"By whom?"
"Mr. Mercer initiated the addition using his credentials."
"Did I authorize it?"
"No."
"Then please place a review hold on all extraordinary transfers pending written instruction from both account holders."
The banker complied.
When Rebecca ended the call, Nora was already typing notes.
"That account name matters," Nora said.
"Why?"
"Daniel Kenneth Mercer."
Rebecca looked at her.
Nora pointed at the initials.
D.K.M.
Rebecca felt anger arrive cleanly for the first time.
Not heartbreak.
Not embarrassment.
Anger.
Daniel had attempted to move nearly a million dollars from a joint account into an entity apparently named for himself less than twenty-four hours after she refused to let him into her apartment.
"Can we trace the entity?" Rebecca asked.
"If it's registered, yes."
Nora opened a corporate database.
Thirty seconds later, she found it.
DKM Strategic Ventures LLC had been formed six weeks earlier.
Its mailing address belonged to a corporate services firm in Delaware.
The manager was listed as Daniel Mercer.
Rebecca read the formation date.
Six weeks.
That was not a panic decision.
That was planning.
"He knew," she said.
Nora looked up.
"Knew what?"
"He knew he was leaving before Chloe ever walked into that dining room."
Nora did not answer.
Rebecca thought back six weeks.
Daniel had been unusually affectionate for three days after returning from Los Angeles.
He brought her flowers.
He booked a dinner reservation.
He told her they should travel to Italy in the fall.
Rebecca had interpreted it as guilt.
Now she saw it differently.
It had been camouflage.
Her phone rang again.
Daniel.
She answered this time.
"Why did you block my transfer?" he demanded.
Rebecca's voice was calm.
"Because it was a joint account."
"I put most of that money there."
"Then you should have no difficulty documenting that during settlement."
"I need liquidity."
"For what?"
"That is none of your business."
Rebecca looked at Nora.
"When the money is in a joint account, it becomes my business."
"You are trying to trap me."
"No."
"You froze my corporate card too."
"I did not."
"Don't lie to me."
Rebecca's face hardened.
"Be careful, Daniel."
"Or what?"
"Or you will confuse the fact that I loved you with the idea that I am afraid of you."
Silence.
Daniel lowered his voice.
"You have no idea what you're starting."
Rebecca looked at the rain streaking the windows.
"I didn't start it."
"You sold my home."
"You brought another woman into it and told me to leave."
"So this is revenge."
Rebecca breathed in slowly.
"No."
"Then what is it?"
"Separation."
Daniel laughed bitterly.
"You won't last a month without me."
Rebecca looked around Nora's conference room, at the documents, the lawyers, the trust records, and the city beyond the glass.
"Daniel," she said quietly, "I have been surviving your decisions for twenty-three years."
She ended the call.
Nora waited.
Rebecca put the phone down.
"Find out whether DKM Strategic Ventures has received any other transfers," she said.
Nora nodded.
"From personal accounts?"
Rebecca met her eyes.
"From anywhere."
By late afternoon, the first answer arrived.
DKM Strategic Ventures had received two wire transfers totaling 1.7 million dollars.
The sender was Northstar Image Partners.
Rebecca recognized the name from the audit summary.
The marketing vendor.
Nora read the transaction report twice.
"This does not prove misconduct," she said.
Rebecca nodded.
"No."
"But it means the audit committee needs to know."
Rebecca looked down at Daniel's initials on the page.
The affair had wounded her.
The penthouse confrontation had humiliated him.
This was different.
This could hurt employees, investors, and everyone whose paycheck depended on a company Rebecca had helped keep alive.
She picked up her phone.
May you like
"Give me the audit committee counsel's number."
THE WOMAN HE CALLED TRASH
