Chapter 4 - THE TEAR-DOWN
I opened my briefcase for the third time and pulled out twelve black thumb drives.
I tossed them across the polished black granite table, watching them slide like hockey pucks across the reflective surface, stopping in front of every board member present.
“On those drives,” I said, my voice echoing off the floor-to-ceiling glass, “you will find every wire transfer, every forged corporate resolution, and every internal email exchanged between Richard Hayes and Marcus Cross over the past forty-eight months. You will also find a copy of an email sent by Richard Hayes at six-fourteen in the morning on September twenty-eighth, three years ago—an email instructing Marcus Cross to 'handle' my wife before she reached the board with her audit.”
The room erupted into absolute chaos.
Board members grabbed the thumb drives. Two senior directors pulled out their laptops and plugged them in immediately. Woman on the audit committee gasped, her hand going to her throat as she read the top-level directory of files.
“This is a lie!” Marcus Cross screamed, pointing a finger across the table at me. “This is fabricated evidence! Security! Get this man out of here!”
None of the security guards moved. They stood near the glass doors, their eyes fixed on me, waiting for my command. It was my name on the building. It was my father’s name on the threshold.
I looked down at Richard Hayes.
The chief counsel of Vance Holdings had aged ten years in three minutes. His posture had collapsed; his hands were resting limp on his lap, his eyes glossy and unseeing as he stared at the wilted dandelion.
“Richard,” I said softly, leaning down until my face was eighteen inches from his. “Did you hire the truck driver on Route 12?”
Richard swallowed hard. A drop of cold sweat rolled down his temple, cutting a path through his powder-dusted skin.
“Arthur...” Richard whispered, his voice cracking like dry wood. “You don't understand... the firm was facing insolvency. Cross Global had leveraged our credit facilities without board approval. If the deficit came out, Vance Holdings would have been dragged into bankruptcy. I was trying to save your father’s company. I was trying to save you.”
“You killed my wife,” I said. The words were not shouted. They were delivered with the brutal, absolute finality of a guillotine blade dropping into its groove.
“It wasn't supposed to be a fatal crash!” Richard sobbed out suddenly, breaking down completely, burying his face in his trembling hands. “It was supposed to be a delay! A distraction so we could get the Boston files out of her car! The driver... the driver hit the patch of black ice! He couldn't control the rig! I swear to God, Arthur, I never wanted Sarah to die!”
The entire boardroom went deathly quiet.
Several board members looked away in horror. The head of the audit committee slowly closed her laptop, her face pale as paper.
Marcus Cross backed away from the table, his hand reaching for the brass handle of the exit door.
“Where are you going, Marcus?” I asked, turning my gaze toward him.
The glass doors opened before Marcus could touch them.
Standing in the hallway were four men in dark suits wearing federal badges, accompanied by two armed officers from the Illinois State Police.
Special Agent Thomas Miller of the Federal Bureau of Investigation stepped into the boardroom, an arrest warrant held in his gloved hand.
“Marcus Cross? Richard Hayes?” Agent Miller announced crisply. “You are both under arrest for federal wire fraud, corporate embezzlement, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy in connection with the death of Sarah Elizabeth Vance.”
As the federal agents moved in, pulling Richard out of his chair and snapping heavy steel handcuffs around his wrists, I didn't watch them.
I reached down to the black granite table.
I picked up the wilted yellow dandelion.
I picked up the purple crayon drawing.
I picked up the four-by-six photograph with Sarah’s handwriting on the back.
I placed them carefully back inside my father’s leather briefcase, zipped it closed, and turned my back on the twelve-billion-dollar merger, the screaming attorneys, and the corporate empire I had spent three years using as an excuse not to feel.
I walked out of the boardroom, through the lobby, and down the private elevator to the Maybach waiting in the quiet dark of the underground garage.
Frank opened the rear door.
“Where to, Mr. Vance?” Frank asked gently, looking at me through the rear-view mirror as I slid onto the leather seat. “Back to the house?”
May you like
I looked out the window at the rain slipping down the glass.
“No, Frank,” I said, feeling a warmth blooming in my chest that had been frozen for forty-two months. “Take me to the hardware store first. I need to buy some garden tools.”
