Chapter 6 - The Last Chance to Lie
Nolan did not answer Celia immediately.
He looked at Elise, measuring what she knew.
Then he smiled.
“It’s a contingency required by the restructuring.”
“Required by whom?” Celia asked.
“The board.”
“The board chair received the agreement six minutes ago,” Elise said. “She’d never seen it.”
Nolan’s gaze sharpened.
Grant entered behind him.
“What have you done?” he asked Elise.
“I stopped signing long enough to read.”
Grant saw Celia holding the resignation page. His shoulders lowered.
Nolan turned on him. “You said you could control this.”
Grant flinched as though the sentence had been spoken in public.
Celia looked at their father. “You knew he was putting everything in my company’s name?”
“I knew he was cleaning up the accounting.”
“You knew my credentials were being used?”
“He said you approved it.”
“I didn’t.”
“You approved the first advance,” Nolan said.
Celia stared at Grant.
Her father rubbed his mouth. “Your payroll was due. You had employees with children. You were calling me every night.”
“I asked for a loan.”
“I meant to put it back.”
“And when Nolan started taking more?”
Grant looked toward the floor.
“He said reporting the first transfer would end everything your mother built.”
“No,” Elise said. “It would have embarrassed you. You chose the foundation’s image over the foundation.”
Grant’s face tightened. “You were never here. You arrived every few months and judged the rest of us for surviving ordinary life.”
Elise accepted the blow because part of it belonged to her.
“I stopped reading the full board packets. I trusted Marisol to catch problems I was legally responsible for reviewing. I stayed away because being angry at you was easier from another continent.”
Grant looked up, surprised by the admission.
“That doesn’t make what you did my fault.”
Nolan backed toward the hall.
Celia blocked him.
“Did you use my company to steal the money?”
“I used a structure your father created.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I kept this foundation alive.”
“You moved money into your investment account.”
“It was temporary.”
Elise held his gaze. “Like the transfer to your consulting firm? Like the line of credit on Dad’s property?”
Nolan’s hand moved toward his inside pocket.
Elise stepped closer, cutting off his path.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
From the corridor, Agent Mercer entered with his partner.
“Mr. Pierce, keep your hands where we can see them.”
The ballroom music continued beyond the wall. Nolan’s face changed, not into panic but calculation.
He turned to Celia.
“If you cooperate with them, they’ll charge your father. They may charge you.”
Celia glanced at Grant.
For most of her life, she had protected the version of her family that looked best from across a ballroom. Elise could see the old instinct pulling at her now.
Grant seemed to see it too.
“Don’t do it again,” he said quietly.
Celia’s eyes filled, but she didn’t look away from Nolan.
“My laptop is in his office,” she told Mercer. “He kept the passwords. I can show you where he stored the vendor files.”
Nolan’s composure cracked.
“You ungrateful—”
“Stop,” Celia said. “You don’t get to tell me what I owe you.”
Agent Mercer produced the search warrant. His partner instructed Nolan to place his phone and the foundation laptop on the desk.
Grant sank into a chair.
Celia moved beside Elise, leaving Nolan alone in the center of the room.
The ballroom doors opened behind the agents. The independent board chair stood there with foundation counsel and two hotel security supervisors.
“Dinner service is suspended,” she said. “The board will address the guests now.”
May you like
Nolan looked toward the ballroom, where donors, veterans and employees were beginning to rise from their tables.
There was no private exit left.
