Chapter 2 - THE INSIDE MAN
I did not believe Richard.
But I did not dismiss him either.
That distinction probably saved my company.
We arrived at St. Catherine’s Private Medical Center twenty minutes later.
Technically, I was no longer a patient.
Dr. Rebecca Sloan admitted me anyway after taking one look at my feet and surgical incision.
“You delivered twins ten days ago,” she said.
“Yes.”
“And someone put you outside barefoot?”
“Yes.”
“Your husband?”
“With assistance.”
She stared at me for a long second.
Then she pulled the curtain around the examination bed.
“I’m documenting everything.”
“I expected you would.”
“No, Mrs. Hart. I mean everything.”
She photographed the redness around my feet.
Checked the incision.
Measured my temperature.
Insisted the twins be examined.
Both were cold.
Neither was dangerously hypothermic.
I had gotten them out quickly enough.
That fact became the only thing I cared about for several minutes.
Noah cried while the pediatric nurse examined him.
Eli somehow slept through almost everything.
I sat between their bassinets and watched their chests rise and fall.
I had spent most of my adult life believing control was protection.
Control the company.
Control the contracts.
Control the information.
Control the risks.
Motherhood had taught me something different in ten days.
You could control everything and still love something fragile enough to destroy you.
Leah entered shortly after midnight.
She was not alone.
Jonah Price walked behind her.
Jonah was sixty-one.
Silver-haired.
Impeccably dressed.
Chief financial officer of Hart Global for nineteen years.
My father had trusted him.
My grandfather had trusted him.
I trusted him.
Which suddenly felt dangerous.
“You look terrible,” Jonah said.
“Thank you.”
“I meant—”
“I know.”
He lowered his voice.
“Is it true?”
“What?”
“Richard filed against the descendant trust?”
“Yes.”
Jonah removed his glasses.
“That information was sealed.”
“So Richard shouldn’t have known.”
“No.”
“Who did?”
“Trust counsel. You. Leah. Me. Two members of the family office.”
“Names.”
Jonah hesitated.
Leah answered.
“Daniel Cho and Victor Shaw.”
Victor.
My deputy chairman.
My mentor after my father died.
The man who taught me how to negotiate acquisitions before I was old enough to rent a car without a surcharge.
My stomach tightened.
“Where is Victor?”
Jonah and Leah exchanged a look.
“Missing,” Jonah said.
I stared at him.
“What?”
“He was supposed to join the emergency call after you ordered the freeze.”
“He didn’t?”
“No.”
“Phone?”
“Off.”
“Home?”
“Security checked.”
“And?”
“His wife says he left yesterday for Boston.”
“Did he?”
“We have no flight record.”
The room became very quiet.
I stood slowly.
Pain pulled across my abdomen.
Leah reached toward me.
I raised a hand.
“I’m fine.”
I walked to the window.
Snow covered the parking structure below.
“What exactly did the forensic audit uncover besides the forged authorization?”
Jonah looked at Leah.
“Tell me.”
He opened his tablet.
“Seventeen unusual transactions.”
“How unusual?”
“Structured to avoid automatic board reporting.”
“Total?”
“Nine hundred and fourteen million.”
Even Leah looked disturbed.
“Where?”
“Multiple destinations. Some returned. Some were used as temporary collateral. Some appear to have funded Sterling acquisitions.”
“Without authorization.”
“Yes.”
“And nobody noticed?”
Jonah swallowed.
“That’s the problem.”
I turned.
“What problem?”
“The transactions used authentic internal credentials.”
“Whose?”
He did not answer.
“Jonah.”
“Yours.”
I felt something deep inside me shift.
“That’s impossible.”
“I agree.”
“You personally control secondary verification.”
“Yes.”
“So?”
He looked sick.
“The biometric token was accepted.”
I stared at him.
“You’re saying someone used my biometric key.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“We don’t know.”
Leah moved closer.
“There are two possibilities.”
“Someone compromised the system.”
“Yes.”
“Or?”
“Someone had physical access to you.”
My thoughts went immediately to my home.
My office.
My marriage.
Richard had access to everything ordinary.
My phone.
My laptop sometimes.
My face while I slept.
My fingerprints on a thousand surfaces.
But the Hart biometric system required more than that.
Then I remembered.
Sixteen months earlier.
A dinner.
Richard had surprised me with a new phone.
He had insisted on setting it up himself.
Face scan.
Fingerprint.
Voice authentication.
I had laughed at how serious he was about it.
My stomach turned.
“Pull every transaction date,” I said.
Jonah tapped the screen.
Dates appeared.
My eyes moved down the list.
September 14.
October 3.
November 19.
January 6.
March 28.
I knew those dates.
Not all of them.
Enough.
September 14.
Sterling Foundation gala.
Richard and I had stayed overnight at the Plaza.
October 3.
Our anniversary.
November 19.
Thanksgiving week at Marianne’s lake house.
January 6.
Aspen.
March 28.
Richard’s birthday.
Times when he had unrestricted physical access to me.
“Son of a bitch.”
Leah understood.
“You think Richard copied your credentials.”
“I think my husband spent more time studying me than loving me.”
Jonah sat down.
“There’s something else.”
I almost laughed.
Every sentence that night seemed to contain those words.
“What?”
“We traced one of the transfers.”
“To whom?”
“A shell company in Delaware.”
“Owner?”
“Hidden behind another entity.”
“And after that?”
Jonah enlarged the screen.
“One payment came out.”
“How much?”
“Two million.”
“Recipient?”
He turned the tablet toward me.
The name was immediately familiar.
Dr. Leonard Voss.
I frowned.
“Who is that?”
Leah already knew.
She had gone pale.
“He’s a reproductive genetics specialist.”
I looked toward the bassinets.
Noah stirred.
My pulse changed.
“Why would Richard’s shell company pay a genetics doctor two million dollars?”
Nobody answered.
I walked toward my sons.
Eli’s tiny fist rested beside his cheek.
There was nothing in the world I wanted less than another secret touching them.
My phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
A message.
THE DNA REPORT IS FAKE.
Then another.
YOUR HUSBAND KNOWS.
May you like
Then a third.
DO NOT LET MARIANNE GET ACCESS TO THE BOYS.
