Chapter 7: The Name She Said
The father of Vanessa's baby was Thomas Rourke.
The same Thomas Rourke who had sat at the end of the boardroom table two days earlier and called the vote that suspended Daniel's rights.
I wrote the name on the notepad in front of me and looked at it for a long moment.
"How long?" I asked.
"Eight months," Vanessa said.
"It ended before I knew I was pregnant.
He doesn't know." Her voice was tight.
"Daniel figured it out from a message on my phone.
He confronted me privately.
He said if I told Thomas, he would go to Thomas's wife with everything.
He said he would destroy both of us."
"So you stayed quiet."
"I was scared," she said.
"I know that's not—I know how this looks.
I know what I did to your marriage.
I'm not asking you to forgive me." A pause.
"I'm asking you to help me get out from under what Daniel is holding over me."
I looked at the name on the notepad.
Thomas Rourke had voted against Daniel at the board meeting without knowing that Daniel held something over the woman carrying his child.
That vote had been clean.
Whatever Rourke had done personally, his board decision had been honest.
"Does Daniel know you're calling me?" I asked.
"No.
He thinks I'm still afraid of him."
"Are you?"
A long pause.
"Less than I was on Tuesday," she said.
"Vanessa," I said.
"I need you to do something difficult.
I need you to tell Thomas Rourke yourself.
Before Daniel uses this."
"He'll hate me."
"Maybe," I said.
"But right now Daniel has a weapon and you're the one holding it for him.
The moment Thomas knows, Daniel loses it."
Silence on the line.
I could hear her breathing.
"If I do this," she said, "will you—" She stopped.
Started again.
"I don't have any right to ask you for anything."
"Ask anyway."
"Will you make sure Daniel can't come after me legally?
He's been talking about suing me for breach of a confidentiality agreement I signed when I started working for him.
I didn't know what it covered.
I didn't have a lawyer."
"Send me the agreement," I said.
"Tonight."
She sent it within the hour.
Grace reviewed it by morning and called me with a single verdict: "It's unenforceable.
It was designed to look intimidating, not to hold up in court.
He's been using it as a threat with no legal foundation."
I called Vanessa back.
"The agreement is worthless," I said.
"He has nothing on you legally."
A sound on the other end of the line that might have been a sob and might have been relief.
It was hard to tell the difference.
"Call Thomas today," I said.
"Don't wait."
She did.
Thomas Rourke called me that same afternoon.
His voice was controlled in the way that people's voices are when they are managing something very large very carefully.
"I owe you an explanation," he said.
"You don't owe me anything," I said.
"Your vote was your own."
"It was," he said.
"But I want you to know — what happened with Vanessa — it was before I understood what Daniel was doing to the company.
When I found out about the accounts, about the employees, I ended the friendship entirely.
That was four months ago." He paused.
"I didn't know about the baby.
I didn't know he was using it."
"I know," I said.
"What are you going to do with this?" he asked.
"Nothing," I said.
"That's between you and Vanessa.
It has nothing to do with the board or the investigation." I paused.
"Unless Daniel tries to use it.
If he does, I'll need you to be willing to say publicly that he used a private matter as corporate leverage."
"If he tries to use it," Thomas said, "I'll be the first one standing."
After I hung up, I sat for a while at my desk.
Daniel had collected people's secrets the way other men collected assets.
He had held Thomas's over Vanessa, held Vanessa's over the company, held the company over sixty-one people who had never known their retirement was being used as collateral.
He had built an entire structure out of other people's fear.
And now, one by one, the people he had frightened were calling me instead of him.
My phone buzzed.
A message from a number I didn't recognize.
*Ms.
Ashford.
My name is Carol Briggs.
I worked in accounts payable at Mercer Logistics for eleven years.
I saw what was happening to the pension contributions.
I reported it internally fourteen months ago.
I was let go three weeks later.
I was told it was a restructuring.
I kept copies of everything.
I don't know if it matters now.
But I'd like it to matter.*
I read the message twice.
Then I typed back: *It matters.
May you like
Please call me tomorrow morning.
I'll be waiting.*
