Chapter 7: Hargrove
"How do you know it?" I asked.
Natalie set her phone down.
She looked at me with the expression she uses when she is deciding how much to say and in what order.
"Eighteen months ago," she said, "I was approached by a man named Clifford Hargrove.
He wanted to retain me for a corporate restructuring matter.
Routine on the surface.
I declined."
"Why?"
"Because when I ran the standard conflict check, Pembroke Holdings came up as a related entity.
I didn't know the nature of the relationship.
I just knew there was one, and I was already your attorney of record on the trust review." She paused.
"I filed it and forgot about it.
I shouldn't have forgotten about it."
"What is Hargrove Private Holdings?" Patricia asked.
"On paper, it's an investment vehicle registered in Delaware," Natalie said.
"Minimal public footprint.
The kind of structure you build when you want to move money without it being easily traceable back to a parent company."
"Tristan built it," I said.
"Almost certainly.
But proving it requires the internal records."
I thought about the USB drive sitting in the wooden box.
Eleanor's voice recordings.
A dying woman speaking into a device in a quiet room, knowing she would not be there to testify herself but determined to leave something that would outlast her.
"Patricia," I said.
"Has anyone else listened to those recordings?"
"Only me," she said.
"Once.
About six months after Eleanor gave me the box.
I needed to know what I was holding." She looked at the fire.
"She was very clear about Hargrove.
She said Tristan had been routing money through it for years.
She said she had found statements.
She said she had photographed them."
"Are the photographs on the drive?"
"I believe so.
I didn't look at everything."
I picked up the USB drive.
It was small and ordinary, the kind you could buy at any pharmacy.
Eleanor had trusted it with thirty years of evidence.
"We need to listen to all of it before tomorrow," I said.
"My office," Natalie said immediately.
"Tonight.
I'll have my associate pull the Hargrove registration records while we go through the audio."
I nodded.
Then my phone rang.
Roland Pembroke.
I answered.
"I heard you met with Patricia Vane this morning," he said.
"News travels fast."
"Patricia called me.
She wanted me to know." A pause.
"Did you find what Eleanor left?"
"Yes."
"Then you saw my name on the witness line."
"I did."
Silence.
Then: "I was there when she signed it.
She made me watch.
She said she needed someone who couldn't be bought." His voice was dry.
"She was right that I couldn't be bought.
She may have overestimated my ability to fight him alone."
"You're not alone anymore," I said.
Another pause.
Longer.
"The meeting tomorrow," he said.
"I want to change the location.
Somewhere more private.
Can you come to me?"
"Where?"
He gave me an address.
A residential street in Druid Hills.
"That's a house," I said.
"It's my house," he said.
"I moved back to Atlanta three weeks ago.
I've been waiting for the right moment." A pause.
"I think Thursday is the right moment.
But only if we go in with everything."
"We'll have everything," I said.
"Charlotte." He said my name carefully, like he was testing how it felt.
"Tristan is going to find out we're meeting.
He has people watching me.
He's probably had people watching you since yesterday morning."
"I know."
"He'll try to stop it."
"I know that too."
"Are you ready for what comes after?" he asked.
"Not the legal part.
I mean the rest of it.
The family.
The name.
What it means to take apart something that has your name on it."
I looked at Ellie in her car seat.
At the letter from Eleanor still folded on my knee.
At Natalie across the room, already on her phone, already working.
"The Pembroke name is on the foundation Eleanor built," I said.
"Forty-three thousand children.
That's what I'm protecting.
The rest of it — Tristan can have the name.
I'll keep the work."
Roland was quiet for a moment.
"She would have liked you," he said.
"Eleanor.
She would have liked you very much."
He ended the call.
Patricia refilled my tea without asking.
I let her.
"What happens if Tristan finds out before Thursday?" Natalie asked from across the room.
"He'll try to accelerate the board meeting," I said.
"Push it to tomorrow.
Try to get the vote through before we can file the injunction."
"Can he do that?"
"He controls five of the nine board seats."
Natalie's jaw tightened.
"Gerald and Patricia are two.
Who are the other two we need?"
"Miriam Osei," Patricia said immediately.
"And James Whitfield.
Both appointed by Eleanor.
Both loyal to the foundation." She paused.
"But Tristan has been working on Miriam for months.
I don't know where she stands."
"I'll call her tonight," I said.
"She may not take your call."
"Then I'll go to her."
Natalie looked at me.
"You were discharged from the hospital four hours ago."
"I know."
"You gave birth yesterday."
"I know that too." I stood up, slowly, and lifted Ellie's car seat.
"Natalie.
How long does it take to dissolve a charitable foundation once a board vote passes?"
She didn't answer immediately, which meant the answer was not good.
"Forty-eight hours for the initial filing," she said.
"If he moves fast and nobody contests it in time—"
"Then we have until Thursday morning," I said.
"Let's not waste the night."
We left Patricia's house as the sun was going down.
The city was turning gold and gray around us, ordinary and indifferent.
Somewhere across Atlanta, Tristan was making phone calls.
I was certain of that.
I was also certain that by now, someone had told him about Patricia.
About the box.
About what Eleanor had left behind.
My phone buzzed as Natalie pulled out of Patricia's street.
A text from Tristan: *I know what you found.
It won't matter.
The vote happens Thursday regardless.
You can't stop it.*
I showed it to Natalie.
She read it.
May you like
Then she pressed her foot down on the accelerator.
"Yes she can," she said.
