Chapter 8: What the Subpoena Uncovered
The subpoena response came in twenty-two days, not thirty.
Grace called me at eight in the morning, which told me everything before she said a word.
"They produced," she said.
"All of it.
Internal emails, billing records, the Northgate formation documents, correspondence with Grant going back nine years."
I sat down.
"Why would they produce voluntarily?"
"Because Pryce's firm got their own counsel involved and that counsel told them that fighting the subpoena while the paralegal's text message was already in evidence would look exactly as bad as it was.
They decided cooperation was the better posture." A pause.
"It wasn't cooperation.
It was self-preservation.
But the result is the same."
She came to the house that afternoon with a printed summary — forty pages distilled from several hundred.
The emails were direct.
Cleaner than anyone had expected, which Grace said was common — people who believe they are protected by corporate structure tend not to bother with careful language.
In one exchange from the fourth month of my divorce, Grant had written to Pryce: *The Harborstone interest needs to disappear before the final accounting.
Use Northgate.
She won't look closely — she never does.*
I read the sentence twice.
*She never does.*
"He knew you trusted him," Grace said quietly.
"He built the whole structure on that."
"And Pryce just — agreed."
"Pryce billed four hours for the Northgate formation and never mentioned it again in any client-facing document." Grace turned to the next page.
"The Hartford project shows the same pattern.
Different shell entity, same mechanism, same instruction from Grant to make the minority interest 'administratively resolved' before the asset sale closed."
Daniel Osei joined us by phone.
I had spoken with him once before — a brief, careful call in which we had both been measured and formal.
Now his voice was different.
"Nine years," he said.
"I trusted that man for nine years.
We had dinner together.
I went to his office Christmas party."
"I know," I said.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry.
Just make sure it counts."
Grace walked us both through the next steps.
The bar complaint against Pryce had already been filed.
The state attorney general's office had received a referral from the court based on the subpoena production.
Civil fraud proceedings were now running parallel to the bar matter.
"What about Grant personally?" Daniel asked.
"The emails establish his direction of the scheme," Grace said.
"His attorneys will argue he was relying on Pryce's legal judgment.
We'll argue the emails make that impossible to sustain.
The civil claim is strong.
Whether the AG pursues criminal exposure is their decision, not ours — but the referral has been made."
After Daniel ended the call, I sat with Grace in the kitchen while the October light moved across the floor.
"He wrote that I never look closely," I said.
"Yes."
"He was right.
At the time, he was right."
"He was right that you trusted him," Grace said.
"That's not the same thing as not looking closely.
That's being a person who believed her marriage was real." She looked at me.
"He used something decent against you.
That's on him."
I nodded.
I looked at the window.
"Celeste called me again last week," I said.
"She's retained her own attorney.
She's asking questions about the marital assets."
Grace was quiet for a moment.
"That's between her and Grant."
"I know." I paused.
"She didn't know.
I want that on the record somewhere, even if it doesn't matter legally.
She didn't know."
"It matters," Grace said.
"It just doesn't change the case."
My phone lit up on the counter.
A message from Matthew Rowan.
*Saw the production summary.
Call me when you can.
There's one more thing.*
I showed it to Grace.
May you like
She read it and set the phone down.
"Call him," she said.
