Chapter 12 - A Boardroom Without Doors
The attorney's name was Peter Lang.
He had helped draft Northstar's earliest governance documents and had joined Aurelia as an independent director only months before the takeover.
I trusted him because my mother had trusted him.
That had become an increasingly dangerous reason for anything.
Elena arranged for external counsel to examine the claim without involving Peter.
He was formally notified of the potential conflict and stepped back from relevant board deliberations.
He did not protest.
Instead, he requested an interview and produced copies of his own old correspondence.
The authorization Nathan described was a preliminary escrow instruction from the Meridian dispute.
Peter's signature was genuine.
But the version shown to Nathan contained an altered account number.
Somebody had edited a real document and reused it to justify recent money movements.
Peter looked devastated.
“I should have seen that our old forms were being used,” he said.
“We needed controls that assumed someone might try.”
The board faced a difficult choice.
We could announce a broad finding before the evidence was complete, risking defamation and panic.
Or we could say less, strengthen controls, and let investigators work.
I chose the second approach, although Julian was already calling our restraint a cover-up.
At the shareholder meeting he entered with two attorneys and a practiced expression of injured dignity.
He attacked our process, demanded records, and tried to cast the review as punishment for adultery.
Independent shareholders asked hard questions of both of us.
I answered the ones I could and acknowledged the ones still under investigation.
When a retiree accused the board of hiding losses, I agreed that the public reporting had failed to give a complete picture.
There was no advantage in defending a mistake simply because it had happened before my watch.
The contested procedural motions failed.
Northstar retained control.
Afterward, Julian confronted me in a quiet corridor with cameras nearby.
“You think this is over because you won a vote?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“I think it's beginning to become public enough that you can't control it.”
He leaned closer.
“Your mother made a deal with Helena.”
I said nothing.
“Find the original contract before your lawyers do.”
Then he walked away.
The comment disturbed me more than his threats.
That night Peter called.
He had located a sealed addendum in his archived files.
It documented a settlement my mother had reached with Helena years earlier.
The settlement included a confidential provision about future claims.
Peter sounded shaken.
“Audrey,” he said, “you need to see the signature page.”
“Whose signature?”
May you like
“Yours.”
