Chapter Six:
Victor’s Office
Victor Crane’s office took up the northeast corner of the fortieth floor, and it had not changed in fifteen years. The same walnut desk. The same framed nautical chart of Baltimore Harbor. The same bowl of butterscotch candies on the corner, which Julian had been stealing from since he was twelve.
He took one now, out of habit, and hated that he did.
“Sit,” Victor said. “You look like you haven’t slept.”
“I haven’t.”
“Then you’ll want coffee.” Victor was already pouring it from the silver pot on the credenza. He was sixty-six, silver-haired, broad through the shoulders, with a soft Maryland drawl he had never fully lost. He handed over the cup with both hands, the way he always had. “Richard called me at once. He was in a state. I’ve known that man for forty years and I’ve seen him like that twice.”
“Twice.”
“Your mother’s funeral. And last night.” Victor sat down across from him, not behind the desk. Julian had always noticed that. Victor never used the desk when someone was hurting. “Tell me what happened, son. From the start.”
Julian told him. Not all of it. The ring, the petition, the empty closet, his father’s line on the phone. He left out the badge. He left Isabelle, Nora, the envelope. He watched Victor’s face while he talked, and he could not find a single thing wrong with it. The concern looked real. The sadness looked real.
That was what made Julian’s stomach tighten. He wasn’t sure he could tell the difference.
“A forged signature,” Victor said at the end. “You’re sure?”
“Marcus compared fourteen samples.”
“Marcus is thorough.” Victor rubbed his jaw. “Well. That changes the shape of it. But not the fact that she left, Julian. Forged or not, the woman packed her bags. She went to your father and asked for help.”
“Or someone wants me to think so.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then let’s not build a cathedral on a guess.” Victor said it gently, and it was reasonable, and Julian felt the reasonable-ness press on him like a hand. “Let Owen look into it. Quietly. He’ll pull the building footage, check her cards, find the car. Two days.”
“The doorman told me the footage needs Owen’s authorization.”
“Of course it does. It’s a Meridian system. There are rules.” Victor spread his hands. “You’d like it faster? I’ll call him now.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Julian.” Victor leaned forward. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
It was said with such warmth that the words Vault 11 rose to Julian’s tongue as though they had been pulled there. He held them behind his teeth.
“No,” he said.
“Good.” Victor sat back. “Because I’d hate to think you were carrying this alone.”
Julian drank the coffee. It was very good coffee. He waited for the silence to become uncomfortable, and when it didn’t, he said, “Did Elena ever talk to you?”
“About what?”
“Anything. Mom. The company. The foundation.”
Victor considered it. “She came to me once for advice about the foundation’s audit,” he said. “Last spring. Smart questions. Better than most of our auditors.” A faint smile. “I remember thinking she’d have made a fine forensic accountant. Which, of course, she was.”
“What did she ask?”
“About the scholarship endowment. Where the original funding came from.” Victor shrugged. “A legacy trust from before my time. I told her to ask the trustees.”
“Which trustees?”
“Your mother set it up. There’s a lawyer somewhere. Ruth someone, in Connecticut.” He waved a hand. “Forgive me. It’s been years.”
The name settled somewhere in Julian’s mind and stayed. He didn’t react. He’d learned that much from Victor.
“She also asked about Mom’s files,” Julian said. “Isabelle mentioned it.”
The smallest pause. It might have been nothing. It might have been a man remembering.
“There aren’t any,” Victor said. “Not since the Legacy Records Disposition in 2019. You signed off on it, I believe. The whole department’s archives went to secure destruction. Your mother’s, mine, everyone’s. We were drowning in paper and the auditors were breathing down our necks.”
“I signed it?”
“Julian. You signed forty things a day that year. It was an ordinary purge, and you were right to approve it.” Victor tilted his head. “You don’t remember?”
He didn’t. That was the truth. He remembered 2019 as a blur of acquisitions and a quarter that nearly broke him. Somewhere in a stack of pages, he’d put his name where his general counsel told him to.
“No,” he said slowly. “I don’t.”
“Then don’t torture yourself.” Victor’s voice was kind. “It was routine.”
Something cold turned over in Julian’s chest. Routine. It was how you described something you wanted him to stop thinking about.
“Who was general counsel in 2019?”
“I was. Before I moved up to president.” Victor smiled with one side of his mouth. “You’re looking at the man who put the pen in your hand. Feel free to blame me.”
It was a joke. Julian laughed, because it was expected, and the sound was hollow in his own ears.
Victor glanced at his watch, a small courtesy. “The board pre-meeting on Halvorsen is Monday. Lucian Ashby will try to make noise about the price. I need you focused, son. Whatever’s happening with Elena, the twenty-seventh doesn’t move. If we lose this vote, we lose two years of work.”
“I know.”
“Then go home. Rest. Let us handle the rest of it.” He stood and rested a hand on Julian’s shoulder. It was heavy and warm. “She’ll come back when she’s ready. They do.”
Julian nodded. He put the empty cup down on the tray. At the door he stopped.
“Victor. How did you know I’d be out this morning?”
“Out?”
“Your text. It said to come before I did anything I couldn’t undo. Like I was already about to.”
For the first time, Victor’s smile stayed put a fraction of a second too long.
“Because I know you,” he said. “I’ve watched you fix things since you were twelve. You never wait.”
It was a perfect answer. Julian thanked him and went out.
The corridor was carpeted and silent. He walked to the elevators with his shoulders back and his face blank, and pushed the button, and stood there while the numbers climbed toward him. He had the strange feeling of having passed a test he hadn’t known was being given.
The doors opened. A man stood inside alone, leaning on the brass rail with his hands in his pockets. Julian knew him at once. Lucian Ashby, fifty-two, sandy-haired, the activist investor who had spent eighteen months making the board’s life miserable. He held a leather folio against his chest, and he did not look surprised.
“Going down?” Ashby said.
Julian got in. The doors closed. Ashby didn’t press a button, and neither did Julian.
“I hear your wife’s left,” Ashby said quietly. “I’m sorry. I mean that.”
“Word travels.”
“It does around here.” Ashby watched the numbers. “Mr. Thorne, I’m going to say one thing, and then I’m going to get off on the twentieth floor and you can tell yourself I’m a lunatic who hates your company.”
“Do you?”
“I think it’s a remarkable company. That’s the problem.” He turned his head. “Ask Victor Crane what Larkspur Holdings is.”
The elevator slowed. Julian’s mouth had gone dry.
“Ask him,” Ashby said, stepping out as the doors opened. “And watch what his face does.”
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