Chapter 6: The Man in the Middle
Marcus Hale's office was on the fourteenth floor of a glass building downtown, the kind of address designed to make you feel small before you even stepped inside.
I had never met him.
But I knew his name now in the way you know the name of something that has been living in your house without your knowledge.
Richard pulled up everything on him by the following morning.
Forty-four years old.
Corporate attorney.
Specialized in asset protection and high-net-worth divorce proceedings.
His photograph on the firm's website showed a man with careful eyes and a practiced smile.
"He and Evan go back twelve years," Richard said, spreading the documents across the conference table.
"Law school.
Same fraternity."
"And Kelsey?"
Richard tapped a photograph.
Kelsey and Marcus at a charity event, eighteen months ago.
Her hand on his arm.
Both of them smiling at the camera.
"The timeline fits," I said.
"It does."
I looked at the photograph for a long moment.
Kelsey, who had stood on those courthouse steps with her hand in Evan's, her stomach round with a child that might belong to the man now sitting in Evan's legal chair.
"He hired the man who might be the father of his girlfriend's baby," I said.
"To defend him."
"Either he doesn't know," Richard said, "or he does know and he's using it."
"Which is worse?"
Richard considered.
"If he doesn't know, Hale has a serious conflict of interest and we can use that to disqualify him.
If Evan does know—" He paused.
"Then Evan is holding something over both of them, and this just became a different kind of fight."
Grace appeared in the doorway.
"Hale's office just sent over a settlement proposal."
Richard held out his hand.
She gave him the document.
He read it.
His expression didn't change, which with Richard meant it was bad.
He slid it across to me.
I read the first paragraph.
Then the second.
Evan was offering to return sixty percent of the hidden assets in exchange for a full release of all civil and criminal cooperation.
No testimony.
No records handed to federal investigators.
No further legal action of any kind.
At the bottom, a handwritten note in the margin.
Not Hale's handwriting.
Evan's.
*This is the best I can do.
Take it and we're done.
Push further and I'll make sure the consulting arrangement story goes public.
I have emails, Claire.
Think carefully.*
I set the document down.
"He's threatening to fabricate evidence," I said.
"He's threatening to try," Richard said.
"Which tells us he's afraid of what the real evidence shows."
"What do we do?"
Richard leaned back.
"We send one response.
Simple.
Professional.
And then we let Agent Carver know he just attempted to obstruct a federal investigation."
He drafted the reply himself.
Four sentences.
I read it and nodded.
We sent it at eleven-fifteen.
By noon, Carver had called back.
"The obstruction attempt changes our timeline," she said.
"We're moving the warrant execution to tomorrow morning."
"The server records?" Richard asked.
"And his personal devices.
Both locations — his apartment and the Delaware company's registered address."
I was standing at the window when she said it.
The city below moved in its ordinary way, indifferent to all of it.
"Will he know it's coming?" I asked.
"He'll suspect," Carver said.
"Which is why we're not waiting."
After she hung up, the office was quiet for a moment.
Then my phone buzzed.
A text from an unknown number — different from Donna's.
*Ms.
Harlow.
My name is Kelsey.
I think we need to talk.
Not through lawyers.
Just us.
Please.*
I stared at the message.
Richard read it over my shoulder.
"Don't."
"She reached out to me."
"She's represented by Hale now, whether she knows it or not.
Anything you say—"
"I know." I set the phone down.
Picked it up again.
"But she said 'please.'"
Richard was quiet.
I typed back: *Tomorrow.
Coffee.
You choose where.
Come alone.*
I hit send before I could think about it too hard.
Richard exhaled through his nose.
"You know this could be a setup."
"It could be," I said.
"But you're going anyway."
I looked at the photo of Kelsey still on the table.
The charity event.
The careful smile.
May you like
A woman who had walked into something she may not have fully understood.
"I'm going anyway," I said.
