PART 4 — The Report About My Health Had Been Written Without Meeting Me
Rosa contacted the physician’s practice before it closed. The doctor named on the attachment list had never examined me. A receptionist confirmed she had received a records request that morning, purportedly signed by me, and had refused it because the authorization was incomplete. Rosa asked her to preserve the request and send future correspondence to our counsel.
We could not know whether Pike intended to obtain a legitimate assessment or create the appearance of one. Either possibility required care. Nina arranged a meeting with two independent board members for the following morning. Until then, Rosa restricted Grant’s access to trust and acquisition records. She did it through documented company procedures, not a confrontation in the hallway.
At home, Grant’s car was already in the garage. The house smelled of roasted chicken, and for a moment the familiarity made me tired. He was at the stove, sleeves rolled up, turning potatoes in a pan. “I made dinner,” he said. We had cooked together in that kitchen for fifteen years.
I put my bag beside the table. “Who is Sloane to you?” Grant set down the spoon. He asked whether we had to do this before eating. “Yes.” He said they had become close during the long hours of the CEO search. He described their relationship as a friendship, then as a mistake, then stopped answering when I asked what he meant.
The watch sat between us though it was nowhere in the room. I told him I had chosen it for Evelyn. He leaned on the counter. “The dealer got a second one later,” he said. “I gave it to Sloane for helping with a major client.” He offered no reason he had kept it from me.
“Does Evelyn know?” I asked. “It wasn’t hers.” He turned back to the potatoes. The answer was technically true and painfully small. I thought of Evelyn opening the bracelet while Grant thanked me for choosing it. Whatever happened between him and Sloane, he had let me participate in a lie without knowing its shape.
I asked about the documents from Pike’s office. Grant said he wanted a fair agreement if our marriage ended. Then he accused me of assembling lawyers against him during my first day as CEO. I told him I had contacted counsel because a false note in my name requested control of company accounts.
“You always make a process out of everything,” he said. “Somebody has to know which process we’re using,” I answered. I was surprised by how evenly the words came out. He pushed the pan off the heat. We did not eat the dinner. I went to the guest room with my work bag and locked the door.
The next morning, Priya sent me a copy of the lobby recording. From one camera angle, Sloane’s cup tipped as she turned toward me. From another, her arm moved into my path first. The video did not reveal her intention with certainty. It did show that nobody bumped her elbow, as she had claimed.
Security had also preserved footage of Grant entering the building before me. He met Sloane in the corridor, spoke with her for less than a minute, then went upstairs. I watched it twice. The cameras had no sound. Whatever he told her remained unknown, and I did not want to invent it from the look on his face.
At the board meeting, Nina presented the account request, the copied signature, and the restricted archive alert. Rosa described the succession draft and the separation documents. She was careful to distinguish evidence from questions still being investigated. The board authorized an outside review of Grant’s access and any dealings with Northline or Pike’s firm.
Afterward, finance director Owen Brooks joined us. Owen had worked for my father and cared more about accurate numbers than anyone’s title. He had noticed a consulting payment charged to business development six weeks earlier. It went to a small company called Elm Harbor Strategy. Grant described it as help on a client proposal.
Owen found no proposal attached to the invoice. There were three payments, each just below the amount that required a second approval. The total was ninety-six thousand dollars. Rosa asked him to gather the invoices and bank details without changing the records. We had a possible misuse of funds, but still no proof of where they had gone.
At lunch, Daniel called from Ohio. Grant had contacted him again, this time claiming the board might remove me because of a health concern. Daniel had asked for details. Grant refused to give any and urged him to sign a voting authorization before “things became public.” Daniel told me he had recorded the voicemail Grant left afterward.
He sent it to Rosa. Grant’s voice sounded gentle at first. He said he wanted to protect the family from a painful announcement. Then he said a buyer was prepared to move quickly if Daniel authorized him to speak for the trust. He never named Northline, and he never explained why a sale depended on my health.
Daniel flew home that evening. I met him at our father’s old house, which we had kept while sorting his papers. We sat at the kitchen table beneath the clock Dad never remembered to wind. Daniel told me he had sometimes resented how closely I worked with Dad. “I didn’t want Grant using that against us,” he said.
I admitted I had been afraid Daniel might believe Grant. He pulled the trust agreement from his bag. “Dad gave us equal votes for a reason.” We read its sale provisions together, though both of us knew them. A sale required our signatures and independent board approval. Grant could bypass neither requirement with a phone call.
Rosa called before we left. Owen had identified the owner of Elm Harbor Strategy. The company was registered to a relative of Adrian Pike. Its listed address was a small office used by several entities connected to Northline’s financing group. The payments had begun shortly after Grant learned the board’s CEO review favored me.
We were still speaking when Daniel’s phone rang. Grant had sent him a photograph of a document bearing my signature. It authorized Grant to negotiate on behalf of the trust. The signature looked convincing at a glance. Beneath it, however, was a date on which I had been beside my father’s hospital bed two years earlier.
END PART 4
