Chapter 7: The Forty-Second Floor
Roland had a contact at the Meridian building — a property manager who owed the Kingsley firm a favor that had been quietly held for six years.
By eight forty-five, we knew which conference room the meeting was scheduled in, which elevator bank served the forty-second floor, and that the judge — a man named Harlan Pryce — had arrived early and was already inside.
We also knew something Diane Corwell did not.
Judge Pryce had presided over a financial fraud case four years ago.
A case in which Gerald Corwell — Diane's father — had been a named defendant.
The case had been settled out of court.
Pryce had signed off on the settlement.
What Pryce did not know, because it had not been disclosed at the time, was that one of the settlement's beneficiaries was a holding company that Pryce's brother-in-law had a stake in.
Ashworth had found it.
It had taken him eleven months.
Roland and I were in the elevator at eight fifty-two.
The forty-second floor was quiet.
Glass walls, pale carpet, the hushed efficiency of a firm that billed by the six-minute increment.
A receptionist looked up as we came through the doors.
"We're here for the nine o'clock," Roland said.
He placed his card on the desk.
"Tell them Roland Hess and Mara Mercer."
The receptionist's eyes moved to me.
Something registered — the name, or the satellite phone visible in my open bag, or simply the way I was standing.
"One moment," she said.
She picked up the phone.
We waited.
Forty seconds later, the conference room door at the end of the hall opened.
Diane Corwell came out first.
She stopped when she saw me.
Her face did what Grant's face had done in the lobby the day before — it went through several things very quickly and then settled on nothing.
Behind her, a man I assumed was her attorney.
And behind him, Judge Harlan Pryce — sixty, heavyset, silver-haired, with the expression of someone whose morning had just become significantly more complicated.
"Mrs.
Mercer," Pryce said.
"I wasn't aware you would be attending."
"She wasn't invited," Diane said.
"No," I agreed.
"I wasn't." I looked at Pryce.
"Judge, before this meeting continues, there's a disclosure I believe you need to see."
Diane's attorney stepped forward.
"This is a private meeting.
You have no standing here—"
"The disclosure concerns you personally," I said to Pryce.
I kept my voice even.
"It concerns the Corwell settlement you signed off on in 2020 and a financial interest your brother-in-law held in one of the beneficiary entities.
Roland has the documentation."
Pryce went very still.
Diane looked at him.
He did not look back at her.
"I think," Pryce said slowly, "that this meeting needs to be postponed."
"Your Honor—" Diane's attorney began.
"Postponed," Pryce repeated.
His voice had changed.
The authority in it was still there, but it was pointing in a different direction now.
"I need to speak with my own counsel before we proceed any further." He looked at me.
"Mrs.
Mercer, I would appreciate it if you and Mr.
Hess made yourselves available this afternoon."
"Of course," I said.
Diane was looking at me with an expression I had not seen on her face before.
Not anger.
Not calculation.
Something closer to the moment a person realizes the ground has shifted and they are no longer sure where to step.
"You should have stayed home," she said quietly.
"That's all he wanted.
For you to take the money and go home."
"I know," I said.
"That was his first mistake."
Her attorney touched her arm.
She let herself be steered back toward the conference room.
Roland and I took the elevator back down.
In the lobby, he exhaled slowly.
"That went better than I expected," he said.
"It went exactly as I expected," I said.
My phone buzzed.
Ashworth.
*Pryce just called someone.
Not his brother-in-law.
Someone else.
Working on it.*
I typed back: *How long?*
*Hour.
Maybe less.*
I put the phone in my bag.
"Roland," I said.
"Who else knew about the Bluebird file?
Before my father died.
Who else could have known?"
He was quiet for a moment.
"There was one other person," he said.
"Someone your father trusted completely.
Someone who was present when the amendment was drafted."
"Who?"
Roland looked at me carefully.
"Your father's personal assistant," he said.
"A woman named Claire Ashworth."
I stopped walking.
"Ashworth," I said.
May you like
"Yes," Roland said quietly.
"Daniel Ashworth's mother."
