Chapter 4 - The Coffee Shop on BroomeBy 6:00 AM, the city looked like dirty salt. The snow had stopped, leaving behind a gray, slushy crust that crunched beneath the tires of delivery trucks.

Claire met Marcus in the back booth of a diner on Broome Street that still had grease-stained menus and vinyl seats taped together with black electrical tape. She was wearing a cheap navy sweatshirt she'd bought from a 24-hour bodega across from the motel. It was two sizes too large, hanging over her bump like a tent.

Marcus slid a paper coffee cup toward her. "Decaf. Black."

Claire wrapped both hands around the paper cup, letting the heat soak into her skin. "Who is David Mercer?"

Marcus took a slow bite of dry rye toast, chewing deliberately. He looked exhausted; the dark circles under his eyes were the color of bruised plums. "David Mercer was your father’s head of security between 1998 and 2006. Before you went to boarding school in Switzerland."

"The guy with the limp? The one who lived in the carriage house?"

"That's him."

"Why would my father give a security guard forty percent of the patent rights?"

Marcus leaned in, lowering his voice until it barely carried over the sizzling griddle behind the counter. "Because David Mercer didn't just guard the property. He held the escrow accounts for the overseas manufacturing licenses. Arthur Sterling has been using Mercer’s name to funnel shell-company distributions into his personal accounts in the Caymans for four years."

Claire frowned, trying to piece together the timeline. "Arthur knew Mercer?"

"Arthur bought Mercer," Marcus corrected grimly. "Or at least, he thought he did. Mercer died three weeks ago in an assisted living facility in Scranton."

Claire’s breath hitched. "So the forty percent—"

"Is sitting in an unallocated probate trust controlled by Mercer’s next of kin." Marcus pulled a yellow legal pad from his coat pocket. "Arthur needs your signature on that POA because without it, he can't file an emergency petition to claim the proxy vote before the probate court opens on Monday morning."

"Who is Mercer’s next of kin?"

Marcus looked down at the pad, his expression tightening. "A woman named Sarah Cole. She’s a nurse at Mount Sinai."

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Claire stared at him. "Why does that name sound familiar?"

"Because," Marcus said, "she's the primary nurse assigned to your high-risk OB-GYN clinic."