Chapter 3 - Seventy-Eight
The ambulance had not reached the end of the drive when Marcus realized Vincent was gone.
He turned from the red lights shrinking between the trees and looked through the open front door. Trooper DeRosier stood in the hall with one hand against his radio. Another trooper was walking quickly toward the back of the house.
“Where is he?” Marcus said.
DeRosier looked at him once, then past him. “Stay here.”
Marcus did not stay there.
He crossed the living room. The table was still under the chandelier. Three of the four folders were inside clear evidence sleeves now. The fourth was not.
The blue tab was gone with it.
“Vincent,” Marcus said.
A trooper came in from the pantry. “Rear door was open.”
DeRosier swore once, quietly.
Susan was sitting in a chair near the fireplace with her arms folded. A female trooper stood behind her. Susan looked at the empty place on the table and then at Marcus.
“He took your phone too,” she said.
Marcus put a hand against his jacket.
The inside pocket was empty.
His personal phone had been there when he arrived. He had used it in the driveway to call his office. He had used it again when Eli opened the elevator.
Now it was gone.
“Why does he need my phone?”
Susan looked down.
DeRosier stepped between them. “Mr. Carrow, don’t ask her anything else.”
Marcus ignored him. “Seventy-eight percent of what?”
Susan lifted her eyes.
“The company,” she said.
“Which part?”
“All of it that matters.”
DeRosier touched Marcus’s arm. “Hospital. Your father needs you. We’ll handle this.”
Marcus looked at the torn portrait on the rug.
Eli stood in the kitchen doorway with a blanket around his shoulders that somebody had found for him. His face was blank in the way children’s faces sometimes became when too much had happened and they were still trying to decide which thing was the worst.
“Dad,” Eli said. “Grandad said ninety.”
Marcus looked at him.
“I know.”
“No. He said they have seventy-eight and need ninety.” Eli counted on his fingers once, quick. “That’s twelve.”
Marcus felt the answer before he wanted it.
He owned twelve percent of Carrow Materials.
Arthur had given it to him thirteen years earlier, after Marcus left the company and moved to Boston. “So you can’t say you walked away clean,” his father had said at the time.
Marcus had never sold a share.
The hospital was twenty-three minutes away with lights. DeRosier drove Marcus and Eli behind the ambulance because Marcus’s hands would not stop shaking hard enough to trust a steering wheel.
Arthur was in a trauma bay when they arrived. A nurse tried to stop Marcus at the door. Arthur heard his voice and said, “Let him in.”
His wrists were bandaged. There was oxygen under his nose. A monitor clipped numbers into green lines beside him.
Marcus stood at the foot of the bed.
“What is seventy-eight?”
Arthur closed his eyes once.
“Voting control.”
“How?”
“Proxies. Trusts. Susan’s shares. Two cousins who should have known better. Employee voting rights they had no right to touch.”
“And my twelve makes ninety.”
“Yes.”
“Why ninety?”
Arthur’s mouth tightened.
“Because the family charter says ninety percent can approve a sale of substantially all assets without the minority holder’s consent.”
“Your ten.”
“My ten.”
Marcus looked at the floor.
“What sale?”
“Red Oak Capital. Forty-one million dollars for a company worth three times that.”
Eli was sitting against the wall in a plastic chair. He had not taken off the blanket.
Arthur looked at him, then back at Marcus.
“Closing is tomorrow morning.”
“What time?”
“Nine.”
Marcus checked the wall clock.
10:41 p.m.
His work phone vibrated in his other pocket.
He pulled it out.
An email from Carrow Materials’ transfer agent had arrived thirty seconds earlier.
SUBJECT: CONSENT RECEIVED — PENDING VERIFICATION.
Marcus opened it.
The first line made the back of his neck go cold.
Thank you, Mr. Carrow. Your executed twelve-percent consent has been received.
Below it was a scanned signature.
His name.
Not close to his name.
His name.
And beneath that, in smaller print:
Original wet-ink instrument to follow by courier before 8:30 a.m.
Marcus looked up.
Arthur saw his face.
“What?”
Marcus turned the screen toward him.
Arthur stared at it for three seconds.
Then he reached for the call button and missed it.
“They have the folder,” he said.
Marcus caught his hand.
Arthur’s fingers closed hard around his wrist.
“No,” Arthur said. “Listen to me. The signature is not the dangerous part.”
“What is?”
“The witness.”
Marcus did not understand.
Arthur’s grip tightened.
“Only one person outside this family can certify that signature under the charter.”
He swallowed.
“Our lawyer.”
Marcus knew the name before Arthur said it.
May you like
“Peter Vale.”
