Chapter 9: Vivienne's Last Move
Charlotte showed the message to Renata.
Renata read it twice.
"Do you know who sent this?"
"No," Charlotte said.
"But someone in this building is trying to help."
She thought about the guard in the lobby.
The way he had turned to her without waiting for Vivienne's permission.
The way Patricia Ellison had spoken up in the boardroom without being asked.
People had been watching this for a long time.
Some of them had been waiting for someone to walk back through the door.
Charlotte called Gerald.
"Vivienne is still in the building," she said when he answered.
"Do you know where?"
A pause.
"The spa level.
Sub-basement.
She went down about forty minutes ago."
"Who is she with?"
Another pause.
Longer.
"Her brother," Gerald said.
"His name is Marcus Webb.
He's a solicitor.
He flew in from London two weeks ago." He hesitated.
"Charlotte β Marcus Webb is the one who drafted the forged document.
He's the one who filed it."
Charlotte was already moving toward the door.
"Don't let either of them leave the building," she said.
She took the stairs.
The spa level was quiet β soft lighting, the sound of water somewhere behind the walls.
A receptionist looked up as Charlotte came through the door.
"I need to know which room Vivienne Hartwell is in," Charlotte said.
The receptionist hesitated.
Charlotte set her ownership document on the counter.
The receptionist looked at it.
Then she said, "Private suite three.
End of the corridor."
Charlotte walked.
The door to suite three was not fully closed.
She could hear voices through the gap.
Vivienne: "β it doesn't matter, Marcus, the recording isn't admissible β"
A man's voice, clipped and precise: "It doesn't need to be admissible for it to be damaging.
If she releases it publicly β"
"She won't.
She wants the company, not a scandal."
"She may want both."
Charlotte pushed the door open.
Vivienne spun around.
The man beside her β Marcus Webb, dark-haired, younger than Charlotte had expected β went very still.
"You've been busy," Charlotte said.
"You have no right to be in here," Vivienne said.
"I own the building," Charlotte said.
"I have the right to be anywhere in it."
Marcus Webb straightened his jacket.
"Miss Vale.
I think it would be in everyone's interest to discuss this calmly."
"I'm very calm," Charlotte said.
"Are you going to tell me you didn't know the signature was forged?
Or are we skipping that part?"
He said nothing.
"Because if you didn't know," Charlotte said, "then you filed a document you hadn't verified, which is its own problem.
And if you did know β" She let that sit for a moment.
"Either way, the Law Society is going to find it interesting."
Vivienne stepped forward.
"What do you want?"
"I want you to understand that it's over," Charlotte said.
"Not almost over.
Not negotiable.
Over."
"Dominic will fight this for years β"
"Dominic is currently being named in a criminal referral," Charlotte said.
"Filed twenty minutes ago.
Your brother drafted the document that makes him the primary instrument of that referral." She looked at Marcus.
"Which means you're in it too."
Marcus Webb sat down.
It wasn't a choice.
His legs simply made the decision for him.
Vivienne looked at her brother.
Then she looked at Charlotte.
The silk gown was gone β she was in different clothes now, something quieter.
Without the gown, without the lobby and the chandeliers and the performance of it, she looked smaller than she had that morning.
"I didn't know about the forgery," Vivienne said.
"I want that on record."
"Then cooperate with the investigation," Charlotte said.
"That's how it gets on record."
A long silence.
"And if I do?" Vivienne said.
"Then that's between you and the investigators," Charlotte said.
"It's not my decision anymore."
She turned to leave.
"Charlotte."
She stopped.
Vivienne had not called her by her name before.
Not once.
"Your mother β" Vivienne started.
She stopped.
Tried again.
"She called me, once.
About six months before she passed.
She said she knew what Dominic was planning.
She said she was sorry I'd been pulled into it." A pause.
"I didn't understand what she meant at the time."
Charlotte stood with her back to the room.
"She was kinder than she needed to be," Charlotte said.
May you like
"She usually was."
She walked out.
