Chapter 9: The Ones Who Built the Fire
Richard called me Thursday morning.
I was in Nora's office when his name appeared on my screen.
Nora looked at it, then at me.
"Your call," she said.
I answered and put it on speaker.
"Madeline." His voice was careful.
Measured.
The voice he used in board meetings when he wanted to sound reasonable.
"I think we've let this go far enough.
I'd like to sit down with you.
Just the two of us."
"I'm listening, Dad."
"Not on the phone.
In person.
Come back to Scottsdale this weekend.
We can talk through this like adults and find a resolution that works for everyone."
"A resolution," I said.
"You're a Prescott.
This company is your legacy too.
I don't want to see it damaged any more than you do."
Nora was watching me steadily.
"The forged assignment agreement," I said.
"Whose idea was that?"
A beat of silence.
"That document was a draft.
It was never meant to be filed.
Greer's office made an error in disclosure—"
"It had my signature on it, Dad.
A signature I never gave."
"Madeline—"
"Whose idea was it?"
Another silence.
Longer this time.
"These things happen in complex transactions.
Attorneys sometimes prepare contingency documents that—"
"I'm going to ask you one more time."
His voice shifted.
The boardroom tone dropped away.
What replaced it was something older and harder.
"You want to burn this company to the ground over a business disagreement?
Everything I built?
Everything your grandfather started?"
"I want to know whose name goes on the fraud charge."
The line went quiet for a long moment.
"You wouldn't do that to your own family."
"You planned this for months," I said.
"You used Ethan.
You used Chloe.
You used the proposal as a distraction.
And when that wasn't enough, someone in your circle forged my name on a legal document." I paused.
"I didn't start this fire, Dad."
"Everything I did was to protect this company.
To protect your future—"
"My future was never part of your plan.
My research was."
He didn't answer.
"I gave Prescott Biomedical eleven patents," I said.
"Eleven.
The company exists because of work I did in that lab while you were taking meetings with investors and planning how to cut me out.
And when I became inconvenient, you staged a proposal in my own family home to keep me looking the other way."
"You're being dramatic."
"Ethan already gave you up." I kept my voice even.
"He left a voicemail.
He said it was all your idea.
I've already forwarded it."
The silence that followed was the longest yet.
When he spoke again, the careful tone was gone entirely.
"You have no idea what you're doing."
"I know exactly what I'm doing." I looked at Nora.
"Goodbye, Dad."
I ended the call.
Nora reached over and stopped the recording on her laptop.
"That's admissible," she said quietly.
"I know."
She looked at me for a moment.
"Are you all right?"
I thought about it honestly.
"Not yet," I said.
"But I will be."
May you like
She nodded once.
Then she picked up her phone and made the call she'd been waiting to make all week.
