Chapter 11 - Marcus'S Price
Nora called Marcus at 10:11 p.m.
He answered on the first ring.
"I was wondering how long it would take."
Nora's stomach tightened.
"How long what would take?"
"For them to use my name."
"Heather says there's a recording."
"Of course there is."
"She says Edgar is talking to another man and the man says you were worth recruiting."
Marcus was quiet.
"That part is true."
Nora's hand tightened around the phone.
Daniel looked up from the table.
"Come to the hotel," Nora said.
"Your security won't let me upstairs."
"I will."
"Nora."
"If you have been lying to me, do not make me ask twice."
Marcus arrived twenty-eight minutes later.
He had no laptop, no company badge, and no phone except the personal device Nora had called.
Security searched him before allowing him into the suite.
He did not complain.
Nora waited at the dining table with Daniel beside her.
"Sit."
Marcus sat.
"Start talking."
He looked older than he had that morning.
"Four months ago, Thomas Vale asked me to lunch."
Nora felt anger sharpen.
"You didn't tell me."
"No."
"Why?"
"Because of what he asked me to do."
Thomas told Marcus that Nora was becoming distracted by expansion and needed a stronger executive structure.
He suggested that Marcus could become CEO if Nora moved into a chairwoman role.
Marcus refused.
Two weeks later Thomas invited him to a private dinner.
Michael Trent was there.
So was Edgar.
Nora stared at him.
"You had dinner with my husband and two men now tied to forged documents, and you said nothing?"
"I wanted to know what they wanted."
"You knew enough to tell me."
Marcus nodded.
"Yes."
The admission irritated her more than an excuse would have.
"What did they offer?"
"Five million dollars."
Daniel stopped writing.
Nora almost thought she had misheard.
"For what?"
"To support a sale of Preston Supply."
"To whom?"
"A private equity group Thomas was assembling."
Nora knew Thomas had wanted her to sell before.
He had raised the subject after Preston Supply crossed three hundred million in annual revenue.
Nora refused because the proposed deal would have loaded the company with debt and stripped real estate out of the operating business.
Thomas called her sentimental.
She called the deal predatory.
They never discussed it again.
Apparently Thomas had.
"Why would Edgar care if I sold?"
Marcus gave her a tired look.
"Because they told him his share of the transaction could be thirty million."
Nora laughed once.
"His share?"
"He believed he deserved compensation for getting you to agree."
"He owns nothing."
"He didn't see it that way."
That sounded like Edgar too.
Nora had paid for the house, but he called it ours whenever friends visited and hers whenever a tax bill arrived.
He described her company as the business when it required work and our company when it attracted attention.
"What did they want from you?"
"Access."
"To what?"
"Internal margins, customer concentration, debt covenants, vendor contracts."
Daniel looked up.
"Due-diligence material."
"Exactly."
Nora's voice hardened.
"Did you give it to them?"
Marcus took a breath.
"Some of it."
For several seconds Nora could hear nothing except the hotel air conditioner.
"Get out."
"Nora, listen."
"You gave confidential company information to people trying to take my company."
"I gave them information I altered."
She stopped.
"What?"
"Customer names were real."
"Values were not."
"Margin data was shifted."
"Debt maturities were wrong."
"Why?"
"Because I wanted them to think I was interested."
"You decided to run an undercover operation inside my company without telling me?"
"I decided to find out why your husband was offering me five million dollars to betray you."
Nora stood.
"You don't get to make that decision for me."
"I know."
"Apparently you don't."
Marcus remained seated.
"I thought Edgar was trying to force a sale."
"And when did you realize it was worse?"
"When Desert Meridian appeared."
"Three months ago."
"Yes."
"And you still didn't tell me."
Marcus looked down.
"Because by then they had threatened my daughter."
Nora wanted to stay angry.
She was angry.
But fear for a child changed the shape of choices.
She had seen Heather make terrible decisions for Caleb.
Evan had made terrible decisions after Edgar photographed his daughter.
Edgar and the people around him had learned that fear was more reliable than loyalty.
"Did Thomas send the threats?"
"I don't know."
"Did Edgar know about them?"
"He knew enough to ask whether my daughter still danced on Thursdays."
Nora sat again.
Marcus continued.
After the threats, he stopped feeding information and began tracing Desert Meridian.
He met Evan privately.
Evan lied at first.
Then he broke down and admitted the shell-company scheme.
Marcus told him to preserve evidence.
Evan contacted Allison.
Allison created the flash drive.
"Why put it in my safe?" Nora asked.
"Because Edgar had no access to it."
"How did Allison get in?"
"She still had an old emergency key to the executive suite."
"Her badge was disabled."
"The safe didn't require a badge once she was inside."
Nora rubbed her forehead.
Every layer of the story contained another violation disguised as protection.
"What does 'worth recruiting' mean on the recording?"
Marcus's expression tightened.
"Thomas used that word."
"You know the recording?"
"I know the conversation."
Nora stared.
"You were there?"
"Not for the recording Heather found."
"But Thomas said something similar at the dinner."
Daniel leaned forward.
"Can you prove any of this?"
Marcus nodded.
He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket.
Security immediately stepped closer.
Marcus slowly removed a small key.
"Safe deposit box."
Nora did not touch it.
"What's in it?"
"A recorder."
Daniel's eyes sharpened.
"You recorded the dinner?"
"The second one."
Nora felt anger and relief collide.
"You have had that for four months?"
"Yes."
"And you waited until now?"
"I was trying to protect my daughter."
"By letting them keep going?"
Marcus stood.
"No."
"By building enough evidence that if I moved, they couldn't crush one witness and continue."
He looked at Nora.
"I was wrong about how fast they would move."
His voice dropped.
"I did not think they would try to kill you."
Nora's anger weakened for one second.
That was the first apology all day that did not sound like self-defense.
They sent Daniel's investigator to retrieve the deposit box under police supervision.
At 12:03 a.m., the recorder was on the table.
The audio was clear.
Thomas Vale spoke first.
"Nora will never sell if she believes employees will be hurt."
Edgar answered.
"Then make sure she believes the opposite."
Michael Trent laughed.
"And Marcus?"
Thomas replied.
"Marcus is worth recruiting because Nora trusts him more than anyone."
Marcus's recorded voice entered next.
"And if I say no?"
Edgar answered.
"Everyone has a price."
"What's mine?"
"Five million."
Marcus laughed.
"You think I'd sell twelve years of work for five million?"
Thomas said, "It isn't your work. It's hers."
There was a pause.
Then Marcus said something Nora had never heard before.
"That's exactly why you don't understand why I won't do it."
The recording continued for forty minutes.
Marcus never agreed.
He asked questions.
He let them explain the proposed sale.
He heard them complain about Nora's refusal.
He heard Edgar say his marriage had become "financially pointless" if Nora would not monetize the company.
At one point Michael asked whether divorce was easier.
Edgar laughed.
"Divorce gives her time to protect everything."
That sentence silenced the room.
It did not explicitly mention death.
It did not need to.
Near the end Thomas asked Marcus to think about the offer.
The recording stopped.
Nora looked at Marcus.
"Why didn't you give this to police after the snake?"
"I was going to."
"When?"
"After I knew my daughter was moved somewhere safe."
Nora's voice softened despite herself.
"Where is she?"
"With her mother in Colorado."
"Does Edgar know?"
"No."
Daniel copied the audio and called Reyes.
Marcus remained suspended.
Nora told him why.
"Because I still need to verify everything you have done."
He nodded.
"You should."
"And because you lied to me."
"Yes."
"If we survive this, we will have a separate conversation about that."
Marcus almost smiled.
"I'll look forward to it."
At 1:14 a.m., Reyes called with preliminary results from Heather's phone.
The second voice memo existed.
It was longer than Heather remembered.
Edgar spoke with Thomas Vale for eleven minutes.
Thomas used the phrase "worth recruiting."
But at the end, he said something Heather had never reached.
"Marcus didn't take the bait."
Edgar replied, "Then make Nora think he did."
Nora closed her eyes.
One threat had been neutralized.
Then Reyes gave her the bad news.
The police had also recovered messages between Edgar and an unknown contact discussing the next morning's court hearing.
One message read, If the judge doesn't freeze her shares, the board still can.
Another read, Grant did his part.
May you like
The final one was more disturbing.
By noon tomorrow, Nora won't have a company to go back to.
