Chapter 6: What Richard Did Next
My attorney's name was Grace Okafor.
She had handled three of Moretti Group's most sensitive matters over the past decade and had never once leaked anything to anyone.
I trusted her the way you trust a person who has had every reason to betray you and never taken it.
I called her from the elevator.
"I need you today," I said.
"How bad?"
"Forged authorization.
Suppressed inheritance claim.
Possible document destruction going back fifteen years."
A pause.
"I'll move my morning."
"There's more.
The claimant is a single mother who was terminated without severance two weeks ago.
I want her reinstated with full back pay before end of day."
"Dominic—"
"I know how it looks.
Do it anyway."
"I'll need the termination letter and the authorization chain."
"You'll have them in twenty minutes."
I sent Marco ahead to pull the HR file and the internal document logs.
By the time I reached my office, he had already printed everything and laid it across the conference table in a clean row.
He looked up when I came in.
"Richard called the board secretary this morning.
Requested an emergency session for Thursday."
I set my bag down.
"On what grounds?"
"Leadership continuity concerns." Marco's voice was flat.
"He's framing it as a wellness check."
I looked at him.
"A wellness check."
"His words."
I sat down.
A wellness check was the kind of language used to suggest that a chairman was behaving erratically.
Making emotional decisions.
Potentially compromising the company's interests.
It was a clean move.
I had to give him that.
"He's going to argue that I went to Brooklyn on a personal impulse, brought a child into a company vehicle, and am now pursuing a legal claim against the company based on documents provided by a terminated employee." I looked at the papers on the table.
"And without the original partnership agreement, he's not entirely wrong that it's difficult to prove."
"So we find the agreement," Marco said.
"He's had fifteen years to destroy it."
"He had fifteen years to destroy the letters too.
They still exist."
I looked at him.
"Because Emily's mother hid them," I said.
"She knew someone would try to make them disappear.
She was careful." I paused.
"Which means she may have been careful about the agreement too."
Marco was already thinking.
"She was an archivist," he said.
"For nineteen years."
"Archivists make copies."
"They do."
We looked at each other across the table.
Grace arrived forty minutes later, read everything in silence, and asked three questions.
"Is the child safe?"
"Yes."
"Is the mother willing to cooperate?"
"I believe so."
"Do you have anything that directly connects Richard to the document suppression beyond the certified mail receipts?"
"Not yet."
She set the papers down.
"The receipts are strong.
The forged termination is strong.
The photograph and the letters establish the relationship and the original intent." She paused.
"But a judge is going to want the agreement itself, or something that proves it existed and was deliberately removed."
"I know."
"So what aren't you telling me?"
I looked at Marco.
He nodded once.
"Emily's mother kept a secondary archive," I said.
"Off-site.
Emily didn't know the full contents.
But she knew it existed because her mother told her before she passed." I paused.
"She told her that if she ever needed it, she would know where to look."
Grace was quiet for a moment.
"Where?"
"We don't know yet."
"Then you need to find out." She closed her folder.
"And Dominic — Richard is going to move fast.
The board session Thursday gives him a window.
If he can get a majority to vote on a temporary leadership review before you produce the agreement, he controls the timeline."
"How do I stop that?"
"You produce something before Thursday that makes the board unwilling to touch it." She looked at me steadily.
"Or you get Emily Carter to speak."
My phone rang.
I looked at the screen.
Emily Carter.
I answered it.
Her voice was quiet and tight.
"Someone went through my car last night," she said.
"The glove compartment was open when I came down this morning.
Nothing was taken.
But someone was looking for something."
I stood up.
"Are you and Lily all right?"
"We're fine.
She didn't see it." A pause.
"Dominic.
There's something I didn't tell you last night."
"Tell me now."
May you like
"My mother didn't just keep letters." Her voice dropped slightly.
"She kept a key."
