Chapter 8: The Morning Everything Moved
Friday arrived without ceremony.
By seven, the household was awake.
By seven-fifteen, a car Emma didn't recognize was parked at the main entrance.
By seven-thirty, Dominic was in the sitting room with two men in suits she had never seen before, and his regular attorney was on speakerphone.
Brooke came downstairs at eight, dressed as though for a business meeting.
She stopped when she saw the car outside.
"Who are they?"
Emma, carrying a fresh coffee service through the hall, didn't slow down.
"I don't know."
Brooke watched the sitting room door for a moment.
Then she took out her phone and typed something.
A minute later her phone buzzed.
She read the reply and her expression shifted.
She walked to the sitting room and knocked.
"Dominic."
The door opened.
One of the suited men held it.
"Mrs.
Harrington," he said.
Not future Mrs.
Mercer.
"Mr.
Mercer is in a meeting.
He'll be available shortly."
"I need to speak with him now."
"Shortly," the man repeated, and closed the door.
Brooke stood in the hallway.
Emma set the coffee service on the side table and straightened the cups.
"Where is Griffin?" Brooke asked.
"I haven't seen him this morning."
"His car is still here."
"Then he's probably still in the guest corridor."
Brooke turned and walked toward the east wing.
Emma waited until she heard the footsteps reach the corridor.
Then she knocked twice on the sitting room door — the signal Dominic had asked for.
The door opened immediately.
"She's gone to find Griffin," Emma said.
Dominic nodded.
He looked composed, but there was something focused in his eyes that hadn't been there yesterday morning.
The two suited men were standing near the window.
The speakerphone on the side table was still active.
"The injunction was filed at six-fifty this morning," the attorney's voice said through the speaker.
"As expected.
However, the counter-filing went in at six-thirty."
"Twenty minutes earlier," Dominic said.
"Yes.
The judge has both petitions.
Given the regulatory review flag we attached, she's agreed to an emergency hearing at two this afternoon rather than scheduling it out."
"And the Devereux connection?"
"That's the part Griffin doesn't know about yet." A pause.
"The man who pulled Marcus Webb's debt records for Griffin — a private research firm in Providence — is the same firm that Devereux used when he exited the partnership.
We have documentation showing Devereux and Griffin Harrington have a prior business relationship going back four years."
Emma's hand stilled on the doorframe.
"Griffin knew Devereux," she said.
"They were in two limited partnerships together," the attorney confirmed.
"Which raises a very significant question about whether Devereux's sudden exit from the Marcus Webb project was organic — or arranged."
The room was quiet for a moment.
"He tanked Marcus's business," Emma said.
"We don't know that yet," Dominic said carefully.
"But we will."
"If he did—" Emma stopped herself.
"If he did," Dominic said, "then Marcus Webb's death was preceded by a deliberate financial attack orchestrated by the man whose sister was simultaneously positioning herself to marry into the Mercer estate." He said it without emotion, the way a person states a conclusion they have been moving toward for hours.
"That is what the judge will be looking at this afternoon."
From somewhere in the east wing came the sound of raised voices.
Brooke's, first.
Then Griffin's, lower and harder.
Then a door.
Griffin Harrington appeared in the sitting room entrance thirty seconds later, his jacket on but his collar open, his composure visibly assembled rather than natural.
He looked at the two suited men.
He looked at the speakerphone.
He looked at Dominic.
"You filed last night," he said.
"I did."
"The Devereux connection is circumstantial."
"At the moment."
Griffin's jaw moved slightly.
"You can't prove intent."
"Not today," Dominic agreed.
"But intent takes time to prove, and time is something you have considerably less of than you did yesterday." He paused.
"The regulatory review board received a supplemental filing this morning.
Documenting Harrington Capital's petition against the Mercer trust as a potential conflict of interest in an active review."
Griffin's face changed.
"That's—"
"Legal.
Entirely." Dominic looked at him steadily.
"Sit down, Griffin."
Griffin did not sit down.
"You're making this personal," he said.
"You came into my home," Dominic said, "and you threatened my widowed sister using her d\*ad husband's financial records.
You filed a legal action against my mother's trust without my knowledge.
You instructed your sister to intercept my family's mail and coerce a grieving woman into signing documents at five in the morning." He paused.
"I didn't make this personal.
You did.
I'm simply making it finished."
Brooke appeared in the doorway behind her brother.
She looked at Griffin.
Then at Dominic.
Then at the speakerphone.
Something moved across her face — not the calculated expressions Emma had catalogued over months, but something unguarded and brief, almost like the face she might have had before she learned to use the other ones.
Then it was gone.
"What do you want?" she asked.
"The petition withdrawn by noon," Dominic said.
"Griffin's voluntary disclosure to the regulatory board by end of business today.
And both of you off this property before the afternoon."
"And if we don't?" Griffin asked.
"Then we go to the two o'clock hearing with everything we have, including the Devereux documentation, and the regulatory board receives a second supplemental filing before close of business." He looked at Griffin without expression.
"Your choice."
The sitting room was very still.
Griffin looked at his sister.
Brooke looked at the floor.
Then Griffin straightened his collar, picked up his phone, and walked toward the hallway.
"I'll call the attorney," he said.
Brooke didn't move immediately.
She stood in the doorway for a moment, and Emma, watching from the corridor, saw her look at Dominic one last time.
"I did care about you," Brooke said.
"At the beginning.
Before it became—" She stopped.
"I want you to know that."
Dominic looked at her.
"I know," he said.
May you like
"That's the part that's actually sad."
Brooke walked out.
