Chapter 7: The Founder's Voice
I stopped walking.
Around me, the city moved — taxis, pedestrians, the rumble of a bus pulling away from the curb.
I stood still in the middle of it.
"Mr.
Whitmore," I said.
"The elder one, yes." A dry pause.
"I imagine you've had quite a day."
"You could say that."
"I've been watching the situation develop for some time," he said.
"Longer than Ethan knows.
I'd like to meet with you before tomorrow morning.
Tonight, if possible.
I know it's late to ask."
"Where?"
He gave me an address on the North Shore.
A car would be waiting at the corner of Michigan and Randolph in fifteen minutes, he said.
I could decline if I preferred.
I thought about the envelope still sitting on a restaurant table three blocks behind me.
I thought about the look on Derek's face when I'd slid it back.
"I'll be there," I said.
The car was a black sedan, driver in a dark coat, no conversation offered and none expected.
We drove north for forty minutes.
The address was a house set back from the lake — large but not ostentatious, the kind of wealth that had stopped needing to announce itself decades ago.
Gerald Whitmore met me at the door himself.
He was thinner than his photographs, and slower, but his eyes were the same eyes as Ethan's — direct, assessing, missing nothing.
He shook my hand with a firm grip and led me to a sitting room where a fire was going and two cups of tea were already poured.
"Sit, please," he said.
I sat.
He lowered himself into the chair across from me and looked at me for a long moment without speaking.
"Derek called me after you left the restaurant," he said finally.
"What did he tell you?"
"That you were a liability.
That Ethan had made an impulsive decision and it needed to be managed." He picked up his tea.
"He used the word managed.
He uses it often."
"And what did you tell him?"
"I told him I'd handle it." He set the cup down.
"I've been telling him that for two years.
It's the phrase that keeps him calm."
I watched him.
"You've known."
"I've known for eight months that Derek has been exceeding his authority.
I've known for four months that it was worse than exceeding." He looked at the fire.
"What I didn't know, until six weeks ago, was the full scope of what he'd built.
The parallel reporting structure.
The hiring controls.
The — " He paused.
"The financial irregularities."
The room was very quiet.
"What kind of irregularities?" I asked.
"Consulting fees paid to entities that don't exist.
Vendor contracts awarded to companies with no verifiable operations." He turned back to me.
"Derek has been extracting money from this company for at least two years.
Carefully.
In amounts small enough to avoid automatic flags.
But consistently."
"Does Ethan know?"
"Ethan knows about the hiring manipulation.
He doesn't know about the money yet." Gerald's voice was steady, but something underneath it wasn't.
"I didn't tell him because I needed to be certain before I destroyed a man I trusted for nineteen years.
And because I was afraid." He said the last four words plainly, without apology.
"I am an old man who has been ill, and Derek has been very close to everything I depend on.
I was afraid of what he might do if he felt cornered."
"He's already trying to corner other people," I said.
"He called me before I even reached the building today."
"I know.
He's moving faster now because Ethan is moving faster." Gerald looked at me.
"You are the variable he didn't plan for, Ms.
Bennett.
He planned for every candidate who might get close to Ethan.
He had files, histories, leverage points.
He had nothing on you because you didn't exist in his system until this morning."
"Because my application was buried."
"Yes.
The irony is that his own interference is what left him exposed." The old man's mouth moved in something close to a sad smile.
"I need to ask you something directly.
Are you willing to help my son?
Not as a pawn.
As someone who understands what's at stake and chooses to be here."
I thought about Lily in the train station.
The purple butterfly sticker still in my coat pocket.
"Yes," I said.
He nodded slowly.
"Then there is something I need to give you." He reached to the side table and picked up a USB drive.
He held it out.
"This contains fourteen months of financial records.
Flagged transactions.
Correspondence between Derek and the shell entities.
A forensic accountant reviewed it last week." He paused.
"It also contains a recorded conversation between Derek and myself from three weeks ago, in which he explicitly confirms the consulting arrangements."
I took the drive.
"Why give this to me and not directly to Ethan?"
"Because Derek monitors Ethan's office communications.
His email.
Possibly his phone." Gerald's eyes were steady.
"He doesn't monitor you.
You don't exist in his system yet." He leaned forward slightly.
"Get that drive to Ethan tomorrow morning.
Before Derek arrives at the office.
Before the nine o'clock board standing call." He paused.
"Can you do that?"
"Yes."
"Good." He settled back.
"One more thing.
When Derek realizes what's happening — and he will, the moment Ethan moves — he will come at you directly.
Not with money this time."
I held the drive in my closed hand.
"What will he use?"
Gerald looked at me with the careful expression of someone who had spent a long time watching a man he'd trusted become someone he didn't recognize.
"Your family," he said quietly.
May you like
"He'll find something.
He always does."
