Chapter 8 - The Midnight Briefing
I unlatched the chain and let Harrison into the apartment.
He sat down at the small kitchen table, accepting a mug of black coffee with a grateful nod. The apartment was cramped, but Harrison didn't look around with the disdain my parents always showed. He looked around with the professional eye of a man assessing a tactical advantage.
“Word travels fast in Newport,” Harrison began, setting his mug down. “By 10:00 p.m., Graham Ellison’s partners at the firm held an emergency conference call. They’ve suspended him indefinitely, initiated an internal audit of his shadow accounts, and are currently scrubbing his name from the firm’s masthead.”
“He deserves it,” I said, sitting across from him. “He was planning to bleed my father’s company dry and leave Vanessa with nothing.”
“Oh, it goes much deeper than that,” Harrison replied, pulling a slim leather folder from his briefcase. “Graham didn't just target your father’s holding company. Over the past eighteen months, he used his position as outside counsel to quietly siphon escrow funds from three separate commercial real estate transactions into offshore shell accounts.”
My eyes widened. “Embezzlement?”
“Grand larceny,” Harrison corrected smoothly. “If the authorities get the unedited audio files your daughter broadcasted tonight, Graham isn't just losing a law license—he’s looking at federal penitentiary time.”
He paused, leaning forward and looking directly into my eyes.
“Which brings me to why I’m here, Claire. Graham knows that Lily has the primary recordings. He’s already calling in favors from local fixers trying to locate the source of the leak. He doesn't know it was an eight-year-old girl yet; he thinks it was a professional corporate spy.”
A cold knot formed in my stomach. “He’s going to come looking for us.”
May you like
“Not if we move faster than he does,” Harrison said, sliding a document across the table. “Northbridge Capital has been looking for an excuse to initiate a comprehensive forensic receivership over your father’s entire corporate portfolio to protect family assets from Graham’s predatory contracts. If you hand those audio files over to my legal team legally as corporate evidence, we will secure a protective custody and privacy injunction that makes it legally impossible for Graham—or anyone else—to touch you or Lily.”
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