Chapter 4 - THE MAN IN THE PARKING GARAGE|
The name was Martin Kessler.
He had been Hale Meridian's chief financial officer when the fire occurred. After the incident, he resigned abruptly and disappeared from the company's public life. Preston had once described him as a disgraced accountant who had fled after making a series of disastrous decisions.
Now his name was written on a note connected to a suspicious equity transfer.
I photographed the note and sent it to Rebecca.
Her response came ten minutes later.
Do not approach him. I am checking the corporate records.
The following morning, Gideon called me into his office.
He had received the same name from his investigator.
"Martin Kessler is currently consulting for a private investment group," he said. "That group has been buying shares in Hale Meridian through several intermediaries."
"Preston is using him."
"Possibly. Or Kessler is using Preston."
Gideon placed a chart on the table.
The ownership structure was complicated, but one fact stood out: Preston's promised equity stake was not a gift. It was being exchanged for voting rights that would allow him to approve a merger.
The merger would transfer valuable assets away from Hale Meridian's original shareholders.
"If this goes through," Gideon explained, "the people who lost money after the fire could lose even more."
"Why does my signature matter?"
"Because you signed a marital consent document five years ago when Preston refinanced the property you owned together. That document may have been attached to the collateral package. He is trying to use it as evidence that you approved future transfers."
I felt sick.
"I never approved this deal."
"Then we need to prove what you actually signed and what was added afterward."
He paused.
"There's another problem. Your husband has requested an emergency board vote for Friday."
The gala was Saturday.
Everything was happening faster than I had expected.
I spent the afternoon with Rebecca reviewing the papers from the safe. She found an inconsistency in the signatures.
The signature on the equity transfer looked like mine.
But the pressure marks were wrong, and the date had been altered.
"This could be a copied signature," she said. "We'll need a forensic examiner."
"Can we stop the transfer?"
"We can seek an injunction if we have enough evidence. But we need more than a suspicious document."
She asked about the fire.
I told her what I remembered: the argument, the smoke, the man shouting about missing files.
She listened without interrupting.
"Did you see the man?"
"Only briefly. He was near the stairwell."
"Would you recognize him?"
"I think so."
Rebecca made a note.
When I returned home, Preston was waiting in the living room.
He held a glass of whiskey and looked at me with an expression I had not seen in years: concern.
"Vivian, we need to talk."
I stayed near the doorway.
"About what?"
"The gala."
"There's nothing to discuss."
He stood.
"I know you don't like the dress code. Cassidy got carried away. We can make arrangements."
"Such as?"
"You could stay home."
There it was.
I almost smiled.
"Would that make things easier for you?"
"Don't be childish."
"Are you taking Cassidy?"
He rubbed his forehead.
"She's carrying a child, Vivian. You need to understand that the situation is complicated."
"No. The situation is simple. You're having a child with another woman."
His face hardened.
"You're not exactly making this marriage easy."
I looked at him for a long moment.
"I saved your life."
His eyes flickered.
"And I never asked you to."
The words struck harder than any insult he had ever thrown at me.
He walked away before I could answer.
That night, I opened the old hospital box where I kept the photographs from my recovery. Among them was a picture taken two days after the fire.
I was lying in a hospital bed, my back covered in dressings. Preston stood beside me, his arm around my shoulder.
On the back, he had written:
You saved me. I will spend the rest of my life making sure you never regret it.
I stared at the handwriting.
Then I noticed something in the photograph.
May you like
Behind Preston, reflected in the glass cabinet, stood Martin Kessler.
And he was holding a folder marked with the same red symbol as the confidential documents Gideon had shown me.
