Chapter 7: What Grant Chose
Grant answered on the second ring.
"I wondered if you'd call," he said.
"Thomas offered me eight million for the shares."
"I know.
He told me he was going to." A pause.
"Did you take it?"
"What do you think?"
He made a sound that might have been a short laugh.
"No.
You didn't take it." Another pause, longer.
"He's sending someone to the estate tonight.
To the study.
He wants the original file back."
"The file is already gone."
"I know.
I watched your attorney photograph it." He was quiet for a moment.
"Elena, when Thomas finds out the original is gone and that you have copies, he's going to move to the shares directly.
He has a lawyer who specializes in contesting inheritance structures.
He's going to argue that your father's departure from the partnership in 1993 was a breach of their original agreement and that the shares were never legally your father's to keep."
"That argument is thirty years old."
"He's been building the case for thirty years.
He has documents.
He has an expert witness.
He was waiting until he had the shares in hand through the marriage before he filed, so there would be nothing to contest.
But if you've blocked that route, he'll go to litigation instead."
"He'll lose."
"Probably.
In three to five years, after you've spent most of what you have on legal fees." His voice was flat.
Not cruel.
Just honest.
"That's the plan, Elena.
Exhaust you.
Isolate you.
Make the fight so expensive and so long that you accept a settlement just to be done with it."
I looked at Daniel across the table.
He was listening.
"Grant," I said.
"The two SEC witnesses.
The ones who recanted.
Do you know who they were?"
Silence.
"One of them was a warehouse supervisor named Carl Briggs," Grant said slowly.
"He worked for a Veil subsidiary in New Jersey.
He recanted after his daughter's medical bills were paid anonymously.
He's been living quietly in Pennsylvania for four years.
He doesn't know the payments were traced."
"And the second?"
"A compliance officer.
Her name was Sandra Okafor.
She didn't recant.
She disappeared." His voice dropped.
"She's not d*ad, Elena.
She's in witness protection.
The case she was part of was sealed.
But she exists."
Grace's pen was moving fast.
"Why are you telling me this?" I asked.
Grant took a long breath.
"Because I went along with something I shouldn't have.
Because I told myself it was business and that you'd be fine and that the money was worth it.
And then I watched my mother look satisfied when my hand moved this morning, and I understood that I had become exactly the kind of man I always told myself I would never be." A pause.
"That doesn't fix anything.
I know that."
"No," I said.
"It doesn't."
"But it might help."
I looked at the window.
The city was dark now, lit from below, the way Manhattan always looked at night — bright and indifferent.
"Stay at the estate tonight," I said.
"Don't let anyone into the study.
If Thomas's people show up, call the police and then call me."
"You think I'll do that?"
"I think you already decided something when you told me to move fast this afternoon," I said.
"I think you've been deciding it since breakfast."
He didn't answer right away.
"I'll stay," he said finally.
I ended the call.
Grace looked up.
"Sandra Okafor.
If she's in witness protection, getting to her will take—"
"The AG's office," Daniel said.
"If they're serious about Thomas Veil, they'll want her too."
My phone buzzed.
A message from an unknown number.
No text.
Just a photograph.
It was a picture of the front of Daniel's office building.
May you like
Taken within the last hour, from street level.
Thomas already knew where we were.
