Chapter 7: What Reid Had Been Hiding
He didn't start right away.
He picked up the tea again, set it down without drinking.
Pressed his hands flat against his knees.
The lamp threw his shadow long across the wall behind him.
"When Tessa and I got engaged," he began, "her family ran a title and property group.
Mid-sized.
Regional.
They'd been operating for about fifteen years."
"I remember you mentioning it."
"What I didn't tell you—" He stopped.
Restarted.
"Her father, Gerald, approached me about eight months before the wedding.
He said the company was going through a rough period.
Regulatory issues.
A few contracts that had gone sideways." Reid looked at his hands.
"He asked if I could help.
Financially.
He wasn't asking me personally.
He was asking about you."
Something tightened in my chest.
Not surprise.
Something older than surprise.
"He knew about the freight company," Reid continued.
"He'd done research on our family before the engagement.
He knew the company was growing.
He asked whether you might be open to a conversation about a bridge investment.
A short-term loan, essentially, through an informal agreement."
"And you told him?"
"I told him I'd ask." His voice dropped.
"I never asked.
I decided on my own that you'd say no, and I was embarrassed about him asking, so I told him you weren't interested without ever speaking to you." He looked up.
"He was angry.
But Tessa had already said yes to marrying me, so there wasn't much he could do."
"That's not the full story," I said quietly.
"Is it."
Reid looked at the table.
"No."
I waited.
"Gerald came back two years into the marriage.
The regulatory issues had become something worse.
He needed help again, and this time he wasn't asking through me.
He found another way to approach the situation." Reid's jaw moved.
"He made contact with someone inside your company.
One of your managers.
He was looking for financial information.
Shipping contracts.
Client lists." He met my eyes.
"He was looking for leverage."
The room was very still.
"Which manager?" My voice came out completely level.
"A man named Prescott.
He worked in your accounts receivable office."
Daniel Prescott.
I had let him go in 2021.
A performance issue, I had been told.
Now I looked at that decision from a different angle and felt the ground shift slightly beneath it.
"Did he find what he was looking for?"
"I don't know.
I found out about the contact through Tessa.
She told me accidentally — she mentioned her father had a source inside your operation.
She didn't realize I would understand what that meant." Reid looked at me directly.
"I confronted Gerald.
He denied it.
I confronted Tessa.
She said her father was just trying to protect the family's interests."
"And you."
"And I—" He stopped.
"You stayed quiet."
"I told myself it hadn't worked.
That nothing had come of it.
That the company was fine." He exhaled slowly.
"I told myself a lot of things."
I looked at the laptop on the table.
The sale documents.
One hundred sixty-five million dollars, accepted and signed.
The investment group had done eighteen months of due diligence.
They had found nothing material to dispute.
But that didn't mean nothing had happened.
"Reid." I kept my voice careful.
"Do you know whether Gerald ever obtained anything from Prescott?
Any documents?
Any information?"
"I don't know for certain." He reached into his jacket pocket — the jacket he'd been holding in his left hand since he sat down — and withdrew a folded envelope.
"But I found this two weeks ago.
In a box of Tessa's things she'd moved into the spare room." He placed the envelope on the table between us.
"I haven't opened it.
I wasn't sure I had the right.
And I didn't know how to bring it to you."
The envelope was addressed to Gerald Hartwell.
The return address was a post office box I didn't recognize.
May you like
But the date stamped in the corner was March of 2021.
The same month Daniel Prescott had been quietly dismissed.
