Chapter 6: What Marcus Webb Offered
Webb called again at seven the next morning.
I was already dressed.
Grace was on her way.
Harold had sent three emails overnight.
I let Webb talk.
"Ms.
Prescott, I want to be direct with you.
My client acknowledges that the asset transfer was handled poorly.
He's prepared to return the North Druid Hills property immediately and negotiate a settlement on the remaining funds.
In exchange, he's asking that the matter be resolved privately, without criminal referrals."
"Without criminal referrals," I repeated.
"Given the circumstances — your recent health crisis, the emotional nature of the situation — my client believes a quiet resolution serves everyone's interests.
Particularly yours."
"Particularly mine."
"You've been through a serious trauma, Ms.
Prescott.
Litigation of this kind is exhausting.
It can take years.
It becomes public.
It affects your own reputation as much as his."
I let a moment pass.
"Mr.
Webb.
Are you aware of the Delaware firm?"
Silence.
"Are you aware of the payment to Dr.
Ellison?"
Longer silence.
"Are you aware that I have my phone records from the morning I collapsed, and that your client called me forty minutes before an arterial rupture that my cardiologist — who was paid by a firm connected to your client — had spent six months engineering?"
Webb's voice, when it came back, was quieter.
"Ms.
Prescott, I'd encourage you not to make allegations you can't yet substantiate."
"I'm not making allegations," I said.
"I'm telling you what Grace Holloway is filing this morning.
You can read the rest in the documents."
I ended the call.
Grace arrived eight minutes later.
She set her bag down and looked at me.
"He called."
"Last night and this morning."
"What did he offer?"
"The property back.
A settlement on the funds.
No criminal referrals."
Grace sat down.
"And you told him?"
"I told him about the Delaware firm, the Ellison payment, and the phone records."
She was quiet for a moment.
"How did he respond?"
"He told me not to make allegations I couldn't substantiate."
"Which means he didn't know about the phone records," she said.
"Damian didn't tell him everything."
"That's what I thought."
Grace opened her notebook.
"When a client doesn't tell their attorney everything, it's usually because they're afraid of how it sounds.
Even to someone paid to defend them." She looked up.
"Webb is going to go back to Damian this morning and have a very difficult conversation."
"Good."
"It may make Damian more dangerous in the short term.
When cornered men panic, they reach for whatever is closest." She looked at me steadily.
"Is there anyone close to you that he might try to use?"
I thought about it.
"Paige," I said.
"She's been with me for four years.
He knows she's loyal to me.
He might try to discredit her."
"Anyone else?"
"My mother.
She's in Savannah.
She doesn't know any of this yet."
Grace wrote both names down.
"Call your mother today," she said.
"Before he does."
That landed harder than I expected.
"He wouldn't—"
"He paid a doctor to adjust your medication for six months," Grace said, not unkindly.
"He would."
I picked up my phone and called my mother.
She answered on the second ring, her voice warm and a little surprised.
We didn't speak as often as we should have.
Damian had always found reasons to keep my family at a comfortable distance.
I had let him, because I trusted him, because I was twenty-six and in love and certain that I understood what I had chosen.
"Samantha?
Is everything all right?"
"Mom," I said.
"I need to tell you some things.
It's going to be upsetting.
But I need you to hear it from me first."
She was quiet for a moment.
"Tell me," she said.
I told her.
Not everything — not the Ellison theory, not the full criminal picture.
But the surgery.
The wedding.
The money.
The house.
When I finished, the line was silent for a long moment.
"Your father's house," she said finally.
Her voice was very controlled.
"He used your father's house."
"Yes."
"I'm coming to Atlanta."
"Mom, you don't have to—"
"Samantha." Her voice was the voice she had used when I was eight and had fallen off my bicycle and was trying to pretend it didn't hurt.
"I'm coming to Atlanta."
I didn't argue.
After I hung up, Paige arrived with coffee and a folder.
Harold called to confirm the filings were ready.
Grace made two calls in the hallway.
At 9:03 a.m., the injunction was filed.
At 9:17 a.m., Harold filed the unauthorized transfer claim.
At 9:44 a.m., Grace walked back into the room and said: "The DA's office has the Ellison referral.
They're reviewing."
At 10:02 a.m., Damian's corporate card was declined at a restaurant in Buckhead.
Paige found out through a contact at the restaurant.
She told me without expression, the way she delivered all news she knew I needed to hear but didn't want to celebrate.
"He was with someone," she said.
"Chloe?"
"No." She paused.
"A man.
His attorney thinks it was a private meeting."
Grace looked up from her notes.
"Webb doesn't do breakfast meetings," she said.
"That's someone else."
She reached for her phone.
I watched her face as she made the call.
Watched the small shift when the person on the other end said something she hadn't expected.
She hung up and looked at me.
"The man Damian met this morning," she said carefully, "is a former associate of the Delaware firm.
He left the firm four months ago under circumstances that are — according to my source — not entirely clear."
The room was very quiet.
"Grace," I said.
"Is Damian trying to destroy evidence?"
She didn't answer immediately.
May you like
She looked at her notebook, then at Harold, then back at me.
"I think," she said, "that we need to move faster than I planned."
