Chapter 9: Four Days
The next seventy-two hours moved like a military operation.
Ivan gave Ruth Adler everything she asked for — Fiona's medical files, her school reports, a letter from her pulmonologist, a statement from her teacher, photographs of her bedroom in the new apartment, documentation of every specialist appointment since the custody arrangement began.
Ruth read through all of it in two hours and called back with one word: "Good."
Jessi's physician conducted the independent examination on Tuesday morning.
The report came back that afternoon: spinal compression at two vertebrae, ongoing nerve inflammation, chronic pain requiring managed treatment — but no cognitive impairment, no diminished executive function, no basis for the claims in Coyle's affidavit.
Jessi's own attorney filed the report with the board's legal counsel before five o'clock.
Ivan met with Gerald Fitch on Wednesday, at a quiet restaurant three blocks from the Meridian Club.
He brought nothing with him.
No documents, no prepared statements.
Fitch ordered coffee and looked at him across the table.
"Daniel is going to make a presentation on Friday," Fitch said.
"I assume you know that."
"I know."
"He's going to argue the marriage is a performance.
That you were recruited." Fitch turned his coffee cup slowly.
"Is he wrong?"
Ivan looked at him.
"The marriage is legal.
It's registered.
I signed the certificate in Jessi's office with full understanding of what I was agreeing to."
"That's not what I asked."
"No," Ivan said.
"It isn't." He leaned forward slightly.
"Jessi needed someone she could trust in a situation where trust is the rarest thing in the room.
She found me in an unusual way.
The circumstances are not conventional.
But I am not a prop.
I am not being managed.
And I am not going to disappear when the pressure increases."
Fitch studied him for a long moment.
"Why not?" Fitch asked.
"You could take the money and walk.
Daniel's people have almost certainly offered you a way out."
"They have."
"And?"
"My daughter is involved now," Ivan said.
"I don't walk away from that."
Fitch was quiet.
He picked up his coffee.
"Jessi's father," he said after a moment, "built this company by finding people who didn't run.
He said it was the only quality that actually mattered.
Everything else could be trained." He set the cup down.
"I'll see you Friday."
Thursday night, Jessi's legal team delivered the financial records to Ruth Adler.
A wire transfer.
Forty thousand dollars, from a holding company registered to one of Daniel's private investment vehicles, into a personal account opened in Cara Voss's name eleven days before the custody petition was filed.
Ruth called Ivan at ten in the evening.
"That's your proof," she said.
"The petition was purchased.
I'm filing a motion to dismiss first thing tomorrow morning, and I'm attaching the transfer documentation." She paused.
"This is going to be uncomfortable for several people."
"Good," Ivan said.
"There's one more thing." Ruth's voice shifted slightly.
"The account Cara opened — the forty thousand dollars is still in it.
She hasn't touched it.
Not a single transaction."
Ivan was quiet.
"That doesn't change the legal situation," Ruth said carefully.
"The coordination is documented regardless of whether she spent the money.
But I thought you should know."
After he hung up, Ivan sat in the apartment's kitchen for a while.
Fiona was asleep down the hall.
He could hear the small, even sound of the humidifier running in her room — the one the new specialist had recommended, which had reduced her nighttime episodes by half in three weeks.
He thought about Cara.
About a woman who had taken forty thousand dollars and then not spent a single dollar of it.
He didn't know what that meant.
He wasn't sure it meant anything.
May you like
He went to bed.
Friday came.
