Chapter 9: The Morning Everything Shifted
Thomas Greer had been Jessi's head of legal for eleven years.
He was sixty-one, meticulous, and had the permanent expression of a man calculating three moves ahead.
He arrived at the office at six-fifteen with two associates, a banker's box of files, and a coffee he hadn't touched.
Ivan had been there since five.
"You're the husband," Thomas said, looking at him.
"Yes."
Thomas looked at Jessi.
"Does he have clearance for all of this?"
"He has my clearance," Jessi said.
"That's sufficient."
Thomas accepted this without further comment and opened the box.
By seven-thirty they had a strategy.
By eight they had a document package — Carol's signed statement, the fourteen transfer records, the shell company registration linking Gerald Fitch to Marcus, and a formal letter requesting an emergency board session on grounds of financial misconduct.
At eight forty-five, Jessi's assistant knocked.
"Patricia Howe is here."
Patricia Howe was seventy, small, and moved through the world like someone who had stopped being impressed by it decades ago.
She sat across from Jessi, read the document package in complete silence, and set it down.
"How long have you had this?" she asked.
"The records go back eighteen months.
I've been compiling carefully."
"Why didn't you come to me sooner?"
"Because I needed it to be complete enough that it couldn't be dismissed."
Patricia looked at the transfer records again.
"Gerald Fitch." She said the name like it tasted bad.
"Marcus has been sloppy."
"He thought I was too compromised to look."
"Clearly." Patricia looked up.
"You said there are three more months of records still being compiled."
"They'll be complete within forty-eight hours."
"Then we wait forty-eight hours."
"We may not have forty-eight hours," Ivan said.
"We have reason to believe Marcus intends to file a competency petition today."
Patricia looked at him.
It was the first time she'd acknowledged him directly.
"You're the husband."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Military?"
"Army.
Two tours."
She studied him for a moment.
"My son served.
Marines." She looked back at Jessi.
"If he files today, the emergency session will be called within seventy-two hours.
That gives you time to complete the records." She paused.
"But the moment he files, this becomes public.
The press will have it within hours."
"I know," Jessi said.
"Are you ready for that?"
Jessi's hands were flat on the desk.
"I've been ready for two years."
Patricia nodded once.
Stood.
Picked up her copy of the document package.
"I'll speak with Leonard Chu this morning.
Quietly." She looked at Ivan again.
"Young man — keep her steady.
She tends to go alone when things get hard."
"I've noticed," Ivan said.
Something crossed Patricia's face that might, in another woman, have been a smile.
She left.
Thomas looked up from his notes.
"She's going to hold."
"Yes," Jessi said.
At ten-seventeen, Marcus filed the competency petition.
Jessi's phone lit up with the notification.
She read it, set the phone face-down on the desk, and looked at Ivan.
"It's done," she said.
"It's in motion."
"Now we finish it," Ivan said.
At eleven o'clock, Ivan's phone buzzed.
A message from Pete: *Second man showed up outside Carol's building this morning.
I got photos.
Clear shots of his face.
You want me to send them?*
Ivan typed back: *Send them to Thomas Greer.
I'll forward the number.*
He looked up at Jessi.
"We have photos of the man who threatened Carol's daughter."
Thomas's head came up from the files.
"Send them," Jessi said.
By noon, Thomas had run the face through his contacts and had a name: Derek Soll.
Private investigator.
Licensed in three states.
And on record as having been hired, twice in the past four years, by a firm that listed Marcus Sterling as a client.
Thomas set the printed page on the desk without a word.
Jessi looked at it.
Then she looked at Ivan.
"He threatened a child," she said.
"Using a man he'd hired before.
On record."
"Yes."
She picked up the phone and called Thomas's direct line even though he was sitting six feet away.
"Add the Soll documentation to the board package.
And call the DA's office.
Not a complaint yet — just a conversation.
I want them aware."
She set the phone down.
The room was quiet for a moment.
"He's going to find out about the photos," Ivan said.
"I know."
"He'll move against Carol directly.
Tonight, maybe."
"Pete is still there?"
"Pete doesn't leave until I tell him to."
Jessi nodded.
Then, quietly: "You called in a personal favor.
For a woman you'd never met."
"She did the right thing when it cost her.
That matters to me."
Jessi looked at him for a long moment.
The Iron Queen expression was still there, but something behind it had changed — had been changing, Ivan realized, for days.
Slowly.
The way ice changes in early spring.
Not gone.
Just different.
"The board session is in seventy-two hours," she said.
"Then we have seventy-two hours to make it airtight."
May you like
She turned back to the desk.
"Let's get to work."
