Chapter 5: Everything He Thought He Had Already Won
Grace Ellery arrived at half past one in the morning wearing a dark coat and carrying a leather briefcase that looked like it had survived a decade of courtrooms.
She was in her mid-fifties, with sharp eyes and the composed expression of someone who had heard terrible things many times and had learned to stay useful in spite of them.
She sat across from me at Adeline's kitchen table, opened her briefcase, and placed a legal pad in front of her.
"Tell me everything," she said.
"From the beginning.
Don't decide what's relevant.
Let me do that."
I talked for nearly two hours.
She wrote without interrupting.
When I finished, she set down her pen and looked at the documents Tobias had spread across the table — the toxicology report, the competency petition, the asset transfer agreement bearing Conrad Vess's signature, the photographs of Garrett meeting with Vess in Annapolis.
"The competency petition is the most urgent problem," she said.
"The hearing is in six days.
If Garrett discovers you're alive before then, he will move to accelerate it.
He'll claim you're mentally unstable, that you faked your own d*ath, that you're a danger to yourself." She looked at me steadily.
"He will use every day between now and that hearing to build a narrative."
"Then we need to move first," I said.
"Yes.
But carefully." She tapped the asset transfer agreement.
"This document is signed by Conrad Vess as your authorized representative.
That authorization does not exist.
You never granted it.
Which means this transfer is fraudulent on its face." She paused.
"What assets were transferred?"
Tobias slid another page across the table.
"Forty percent of the shipyard's operating shares.
Moved into a holding structure registered in Delaware.
The beneficial owner of that structure is Warren Hale."
Grace's expression didn't change, but her pen stopped moving for just a moment.
"Warren Hale," she said.
"You know him," I said.
"I know of him.
He's been careful for a long time." She looked up.
"If we can tie this transfer to the competency petition and the poisoning, we have a crjminal conspiracy case.
Not just civil fraud.
Federal." She closed her legal pad.
"But I need one thing before I can move."
"What?"
"I need you to walk into that competency hearing alive, in person, and in front of a judge." She looked at me.
"Right now, Garrett believes you are d*ad.
That is your only advantage.
The moment he knows you survived, he will start destroying evidence.
We need to control exactly when he finds out — and where."
"The hearing," Tobias said.
"The hearing," Grace confirmed.
"He'll be there.
His attorney will be there.
And when you walk through that door, every move he makes in the next sixty seconds will be on the record."
I thought about Garrett's face on the shore.
The way he had smiled.
"He won't be able to help himself," I said.
"No," Grace said.
"Men like him never can."
She reached into her briefcase and produced a second folder.
She slid it across to me.
"In the meantime, I need you to review these.
They are the financial records from your parents' estate settlement fifteen years ago.
I obtained them through a contact at the probate court." She watched my face as I opened the folder.
"Look at page seven."
Page seven showed a transfer of funds from the estate — a significant sum, listed as a legal settlement with a company called Meridian Coastal Holdings.
"Meridian Coastal Holdings," I said.
"Is the original name of Warren Hale's company," Grace said.
"Before he restructured it."
My parents had d*ed.
And within fourteen months, a portion of their estate had been paid out to the man who had arranged their d*aths.
"He billed the estate," I said.
"For the accident he caused."
"Through a fraudulent liability claim.
Your parents' executor approved it.
The executor at the time was—"
She didn't finish the sentence.
She didn't have to.
May you like
I had already seen the name on the page.
Marcus Hale.
