Chapter 6 - THE SECRET INSIDE THE WHEELCHAIR|
Eleanor Whitmore hated being treated like a fragile old woman.
At seventy-eight, she had survived cancer, a hostile corporate takeover, two recessions, and a husband who once told her she wasn't capable of running a business.
She had buried him twenty years later.
And expanded the company he insisted would fail.
A recent hip operation had temporarily put her in a wheelchair.
But it hadn't weakened her mind.
On Sunday afternoon, she sat in her private penthouse apartment above the Hawthorne Grand while Rosa Delgado examined photographs of the wheelchair.
“Someone damaged the left locking assembly,” Rosa explained. “The part that holds the brake against the wheel was filed down.”
Eleanor studied the photograph.
“That wasn't wear and tear.”
“No, ma'am.”
“Can you tell when it happened?”
“Not yet.”
Rosa turned to another image.
“We found something else.”
A small metal fragment had been recovered from the chair's wheel housing.
It carried traces of bright blue paint.
“The same paint used on certain maintenance tools in the hotel's engineering department,” Rosa said.
Eleanor looked toward the window.
“Colin had access.”
“Yes.”
“But he may not have acted alone.”
Rosa nodded.
“We're investigating that possibility.”
Ethan entered carrying the acquisition document.
“Grandma, we need to talk.”
Eleanor took one look at his face.
“You found something.”
He handed her the paper.
She read it without speaking.
Then she placed it on the table.
“Meridian Capital.”
“You know them?”
“They've tried to buy us for five years.”
“Madison had this in her suitcase.”
Eleanor closed her eyes briefly.
“Of course she did.”
Ethan leaned forward.
“What does this mean?”
“The Hawthorne family trust controls sixty-four percent of the company's voting interests. Major transactions require specific trustee approvals.”
“And you're the controlling trustee.”
“Yes.”
“So how could anyone sell the company without you?”
Eleanor tapped the acquisition document.
“By claiming I had already surrendered my authority.”
Ethan frowned.
“That's impossible.”
Eleanor looked toward Rosa.
“Did you check the corporate correspondence delivered Friday?”
Rosa nodded.
“Your attorney says a new power-of-attorney instrument was submitted to the company secretary.”
Ethan stared.
“What?”
“It appears to bear your grandmother's signature,” Rosa explained.
Eleanor's expression became ice-cold.
“I signed no such document.”
Ethan slowly sat down.
“Then it's forged.”
“Potentially,” Rosa said. “We need the original and a proper examination.”
Eleanor opened a drawer and removed a framed photograph.
It showed the Hawthorne Grand forty years earlier, before the renovations and chandeliers.
“I built this hotel from a bankrupt building nobody wanted,” she said.
“Then we stop them,” Ethan replied.
Eleanor looked at him.
“You don't understand yet.”
She turned the photograph over.
Written on the back was an old message in black ink.
Never trust the person who offers to save you from a disaster they created.
Ethan read it.
“Who wrote that?”
May you like
Eleanor's fingers tightened around the frame.
“A man who warned me about something very similar a long time ago.”
