Chapter 9: The Distance Grace Warned About
She was right about the distance.
November passed.
Then December.
The holidays came and went — I spent Christmas with my sister in Vermont, the first time in four years I hadn't spent it managing Marcus's family obligations and his mother's opinions about the table settings.
My sister made too much food and we watched old films and I slept nine hours a night and it felt, cautiously, like something returning.
January brought the formal audit findings.
Grace called me on a Tuesday afternoon.
"The forensic report is complete," she said.
"It's been submitted to the enforcement division.
Total misappropriation identified across the relevant period is $4.1 million.
The Alderman connection adds a separate dimension that the investigators are treating as a parallel track."
"What does that mean for the timeline?"
"It means the civil action will move forward independently of any criminal referral.
Marcus will face the civil enforcement first — disgorgement of funds, penalties, likely a permanent bar from serving as an officer or director of a public company." A pause.
"The criminal question depends on how the parallel investigation develops.
That is not my area, and I would not speculate."
"But it's possible."
"It's possible," she said.
"Yes."
I was standing in my office — my office now, the one with the window that looked east over the city.
I had moved very little into it.
A photograph of my aunt.
A small plant Daniel had brought on my first day, a succulent in a terracotta pot that he said was impossible to kjll.
"Grace," I said.
"The fake reviews.
The platform investigation."
"Concluded last week.
All seven accounts were removed.
The platform issued a correction notice.
Your rating has been restored." Another pause.
"The IP clustering was traced to a device registered to a communications consulting firm that has done work for Marcus in the past.
The platform has referred the matter to their legal team."
"That's not nothing," I said.
"No," she agreed.
"It's not nothing."
After the call, I sat for a while without doing anything in particular.
The plant on the desk caught the afternoon light.
The photograph of my aunt — taken at a garden party, the summer before she got sick — sat in its frame at the corner of the desk.
She had been the one who told me, years ago, not to correct people when they underestimated me.
*Let them,* she had said.
*Let them build the ceiling as low as they like.
You'll know where it is when the time comes.*
I had thought of her every day of the past six months.
I thought of her now.
My phone buzzed.
A message from Daniel: *Dinner?
I found a place that does a proper pie.
You look like you need pie.*
I looked at the message for a moment.
May you like
Then I wrote back: *Yes.
Give me an hour.*
