Chapter 6: What Gerald Parker Knew
I found a quiet corner near the catering station and took out my phone.
Julian answered on the second ring.
"He saw me," I said.
"I know.
I watched it from across the room."
"He said your father would come after anyone connected to the family if the merger fell apart.
He said he'd done it before."
A pause.
"He has."
"What did he do?"
"Three years ago there was an accountant.
A woman named Diane who worked for the company for eleven years.
She found the same discrepancies Adrian had been creating — but she found earlier ones.
Ones our father had made himself, before Adrian ever started." Julian's voice was careful.
"She was going to report it.
Our father had her discredited.
Told her employer she'd been stealing.
She lost her job, her professional license.
She moved away.
I don't know where she is now."
I pressed my back against the wall.
"So Adrian's theft wasn't the only one."
"No."
"Your father was covering his own records when he found Adrian's."
"Yes.
The merger is partly about moving assets before anyone looks too closely at the company books.
Priya's father doesn't know that either."
"Julian." I kept my voice low.
"The envelope you gave me.
Is it enough?"
"For Adrian's portion, yes.
For our father's — I only have what I could copy without being caught.
It points in the right direction.
But you'd need someone who knows what to look for."
I thought of something.
"Diane.
The accountant."
Silence.
"If she found it once, she'd recognize it again."
"Meredith, my father destroyed her career."
"I know.
That might be exactly why she'd want to talk."
Another pause.
Longer this time.
"I might be able to find her," Julian said quietly.
"Do it."
I ended the call.
When I looked up, Gerald Parker was standing at the edge of the catering station, a glass of whiskey in one hand, watching me.
He was a tall man.
Silver-haired.
The kind of face that had been handsome once and had curdled into something harder with age.
He didn't look surprised to see me.
He looked like a man who had already run the calculations and decided he wasn't worried.
He walked over.
"Meredith." He said my name the way people say the name of a problem they've already solved.
"I heard you were working the event.
Unfortunate coincidence."
"Is it a coincidence?"
He smiled.
"What else would it be?"
"I don't know yet."
He swirled his glass.
"You look well.
Better than I expected, given everything."
"Given that I spent three months grieving your son."
"Grief is hard.
You're young.
You recover." He said it the way someone might note that a scratch on a car will buff out.
"I hope you understand that what happened was necessary.
Adrian made choices that put the entire family at risk.
We had to manage the situation."
"You managed it by staging a funeral."
"We managed it by containing the damage." His voice didn't change.
"Which is what families do."
"And me?
Was I damage to be contained?"
"You were collateral.
There's a difference." He took a sip of his whiskey.
"I have nothing against you personally, Meredith.
You were simply in the way of a solution."
I looked at him.
The confidence in his face was total.
He had done this before.
He had looked at a person whose life he'd upended and felt nothing but mild inconvenience.
"I want you to enjoy the rest of the evening," he said.
"Finish your work.
Go home.
And I want you to think very carefully about whether there is anything to be gained by making this difficult."
"Is that advice?"
"It's clarity." He set his glass down on the catering table.
"I'm very good at making things difficult for people who make things difficult for me.
Ask anyone who's tried."
He walked away without waiting for a response.
My hands were steady.
May you like
I picked up his glass and carried it to the nearest tray.
Then I went to find the wedding coordinator.
