Chapter 9 - THE CAR IN THE ALLEY
Every person in the boardroom looked at Bryce.
He stared back at Special Agent Hale as though the accusation were too ridiculous to deserve fear.
Then fear arrived anyway.
"My car?"
"A black Mercedes registered to you," Hale said.
"It entered the alley behind Ms. Grant's office at 11:48 p.m. on Christmas Eve and left at 12:26 a.m."
Bryce shook his head.
"I was at my father's house."
Richard answered immediately.
"You left around eleven thirty."
Bryce turned toward him.
"I went to get cigarettes."
Celeste's face went rigid.
"You don't smoke."
The words escaped before she could stop them.
Bryce looked at her.
Hale noticed the exchange.
"Mr. Mercer, did you lend your vehicle to anyone?"
Bryce hesitated.
"I don't remember."
"That's a fast decline from 'I went to get cigarettes.'"
"I want a lawyer."
"That's your right."
Hale did not sound disappointed.
He looked at Richard.
"Mr. Mercer, I need your consent to secure Mr. Bell's company computer."
Richard nodded.
Arthur Bell stood near the wall, silent and pale.
Naomi watched him carefully.
"Arthur," she said, "you should follow your own advice and stop talking."
His eyes flicked toward her.
"I wasn't talking."
"Good start."
The agents escorted him out.
Celeste picked up her purse again.
"I'm done with this spectacle."
Richard stepped between her and the door.
"No."
She stared at him.
"Move."
"Did you take Bryce's car on Christmas Eve?"
"Of course not."
"Did you go to Naomi's office?"
"No."
"Did you tell Arthur to get Eleanor's trust file?"
"No."
Richard looked into the face of the woman he had trusted for ten years.
"Then why are you scared?"
Celeste laughed.
"I'm not scared."
"I'm disgusted."
"Your daughter walks in here after ignoring this company for years, waves a dead woman's paperwork around, and suddenly everyone treats me like a criminal."
Leah stood.
"I didn't call you a criminal."
"Not yet."
"No."
Leah met her eyes.
"I called you unauthorized."
"The police can decide the rest."
Celeste's composure cracked for half a second.
It was enough.
Then the board resumed without her.
By noon, three resolutions had passed.
Bryce's promotion was formally suspended.
Evelyn Park was placed under board protection from retaliatory termination.
An independent forensic accounting firm was authorized to review five years of payments, contracts, board consents, and executive expenses.
The final resolution divided the room.
Priya Shah proposed temporarily restricting Richard's unilateral authority to pledge assets or appoint family members while the review continued.
Richard did not object.
Bryce did.
"You're stripping Dad of his own company because Leah showed up with a lawyer."
Ortiz answered.
"No."
"We are doing what we should have done years ago."
The vote passed five to one.
Richard abstained.
When the meeting ended, he remained seated.
Everyone else filed out until only Leah, Richard, and Naomi remained.
The promotion banner from the Christmas party felt very far away now.
Richard looked at Leah.
"I failed you."
Leah did not rush to comfort him.
He continued.
"I don't mean Christmas."
"Christmas was cruel."
"But this is bigger."
"I let Bryce use your name because it benefited the company."
"I let Celeste make decisions because confronting her was exhausting."
"I signed things without reading closely."
"And sometimes I didn't sign them at all and still didn't notice."
He looked at his hands.
"Your mother would despise what I became."
Leah's voice was quiet.
"Mom doesn't get to answer that."
"I do."
Richard looked up.
"Do you?"
"Yes."
She did not soften the words.
"You became comfortable."
"Then comfort became avoidance."
"Then avoidance became permission."
Richard swallowed.
"Can you forgive me?"
Leah looked through the glass wall toward employees moving in the corridor.
"I don't know."
The honesty hurt him.
It also seemed to relieve him.
She continued.
"Forgiveness isn't the first problem."
"Truth is."
"We don't even know what happened yet."
Richard nodded.
"Then let's find out."
An hour later, Leah met Hale in a conference room.
He placed three photographs on the table.
The first showed Bryce's Mercedes entering the alley.
The second showed a hooded figure climbing the fire escape.
The third showed someone waiting beside the car.
The image was grainy.
But the person's posture was familiar.
Leah looked closer.
"That's not Bryce."
"No."
"Not Celeste either."
"We don't think so."
Hale pointed to a reflection in a shop window.
A man's profile was barely visible.
Leah stared at it.
"Arthur?"
"Maybe."
"But there's more."
He produced a traffic camera image taken twenty minutes later.
Bryce's Mercedes was heading back toward Richard's neighborhood.
The driver was visible.
Celeste sat behind the wheel.
Leah felt a chill.
"So she lied."
"Yes."
"Who was with her?"
"We don't know."
Hale leaned back.
"Bryce claims his mother asked to borrow the car because hers had a warning light."
"He says he never went to the office."
"Do you believe him?"
"About the break-in?"
Hale considered.
"Possibly."
"About everything else?"
"Not even slightly."
Leah almost smiled.
Then Hale's expression changed.
"We searched the trash collection from the Mercer residence this morning under warrant."
"Why?"
"Because of the unauthorized access to federal records."
He slid over a clear evidence photograph.
Inside a torn garbage bag were strips of shredded paper.
Technicians had reconstructed part of one page.
It was a copy of Eleanor's trust.
Across the bottom, in blue ink, someone had written:
Find a way to invalidate Leah before the 27th.
The handwriting was not Celeste's.
Leah knew it immediately.
May you like
It belonged to her father.
