Chapter 6: The Attorney Makes His Move
Diana called at noon.
"Holt filed an emergency motion this morning," she said.
"He's claiming the warrant was obtained using evidence gathered improperly.
He's arguing that your involvement as both the investigating auditor and the spouse of a named subject represents a conflict of interest that taints the entire case."
I set down the cup of tea Patrice had brought an hour ago, still half full.
"He's trying to suppress the evidence."
"He's trying to suppress all of it.
The server records, the transfer documents, everything." Diana's voice was controlled, but I knew her well enough to hear what was underneath it.
"He filed in front of Judge Calloway.
We have a hearing at four o'clock this afternoon."
"Calloway." I thought for a moment.
"Calloway handled the Meridian Group case two years ago.
He ruled against suppression."
"He did.
But Holt knows that.
He's not filing because he thinks he'll win today.
He's filing to slow us down.
To buy time.
To find out how much we have before formal charges are filed."
"What about Seraphina?"
"She called me at ten.
She's coming in tomorrow morning with her attorney.
The recording she described — if it's what she says it is — it's significant." A pause.
"Audrey, I need to ask you something directly."
"Go ahead."
"Holt's conflict-of-interest argument.
Is there anything in the way you handled this investigation that he could actually use?
Anything you did differently because Julian was your husband?"
The question sat in the room.
"I asked the team to wait on the warrant," I said.
"For fourteen days.
I told them I needed more time to verify the authorization chain."
"Was that true?"
"Partially.
The authorization chain was verified within the first week." I looked at the window.
"The other seven days were personal."
"Did you document your reasoning as procedural?"
"I documented it as verification delay pending secondary source confirmation."
Diana was quiet.
"That's not false," she said carefully.
"No.
But it's not complete."
Another silence.
"It won't be enough for Calloway," Diana said finally.
"A fourteen-day verification delay on a complex financial case is well within normal parameters.
Holt will argue it.
Calloway will look at the full timeline and the documentation and he'll rule against suppression." She paused.
"But I needed to know."
"I know you did."
"Is there anything else?"
"No."
"All right." I heard her stand.
"I'll call you after the four o'clock hearing."
She hung up.
I sat with the phone in my hand and thought about the fourteen days.
The authorization files had arrived on a Tuesday.
By the following Tuesday I had confirmed Julian's signature on every transfer.
I had sat at my desk for seven additional days and looked at the evidence and thought about the baby moving inside me and tried to find another explanation.
There wasn't one.
I had always known there wasn't one.
At three in the afternoon, a different kind of knock came at the door.
Not a nurse.
Not Diana.
Not Julian.
Eleanor Sterling stood in the doorway in the same dress she had worn to the wedding, now wrinkled, her hair no longer perfectly set.
She looked like a woman who had been awake for thirty-six hours, which she had.
She looked like a woman who had come to fight.
"I'd like to speak with you," she said.
"You can come in or you can leave.
If you come in, you'll sit down and you'll speak calmly or the conversation ends."
She came in.
She did not sit down.
"This has gone far enough," she said.
"Sit down, Eleanor."
"You have made your point—"
"Sit down."
She sat.
The effort of it showed in her jaw.
"You have humiliated this family," she said.
"On Seraphina's wedding night.
In front of three hundred guests.
Whatever grievance you had, whatever you thought you were doing, you have destroyed something that cannot be rebuilt."
"I was in premature labor on a bathroom floor," I said.
"You locked the door."
"I was managing a situation—"
"You locked a woman in labor in a bathroom so she wouldn't inconvenience a party."
"That is not—"
"Eleanor." My voice didn't rise.
"I have a four-pound baby in the NICU down the hall.
I have a hearing in one hour where your attorney is trying to suppress evidence of eleven years of financial fraud.
I have very little patience left and none of it is for this conversation." I looked at her directly.
"What do you actually want?"
Eleanor's hands were in her lap.
She pressed them flat against her thighs.
"I want you to consider what you're doing to your daughter's family."
"Her family is me."
"Julian is her father."
"Julian signed authorization documents for shell corporations that listed d*ad people as employees.
Julian stood outside a locked door while I was in labor and told me to wait ten minutes." I held Eleanor's gaze.
"Julian is her father.
That's a fact.
What it means going forward is a legal question, not a conversation I'm having with you."
Eleanor's expression shifted.
Something moved behind her eyes that I had never seen there before.
Not fear, like in the corridor last night.
Something older than fear.
"I built that estate," she said.
"Thirty years.
Everything the Sterling name means, I built."
"I know."
"And you're going to take it apart."
"You took it apart," I said.
"I'm just the one who documented it."
She stood.
Her hands were shaking slightly.
She pressed them to her sides.
"You think this makes you righteous," she said.
"I think it makes me someone who did her job."
Eleanor moved toward the door.
She stopped with her hand on the frame — the same place Julian had stopped that morning — and turned back.
"The baby," she said.
Her voice had changed.
The fight had gone out of it.
"What did you name her?"
I looked at Eleanor Sterling for a long moment.
"I haven't decided yet."
Eleanor nodded once.
Then she left.
At four-fifteen, Diana called.
"Calloway ruled against suppression.
All evidence stands.
Holt is already filing an appeal, but it won't hold." Her voice was steady and satisfied.
"We're moving to formal charges tomorrow morning."
I closed my eyes.
"All three of them?"
"Eleanor, Julian, and Holt.
Seraphina's cooperation agreement is being drafted tonight.
Her attorney is good.
She'll likely receive a significantly reduced charge in exchange for full testimony."
"And the appeal?"
"It'll slow things by a week at most.
The documentation is clean, Audrey.
The fourteen-day delay is within parameters.
Holt has nothing."
I let out a breath I felt like I had been holding since October.
"Thank you, Diana."
"Get some rest.
Tomorrow is going to be long."
I put the phone down.
Patrice appeared in the doorway with a different expression than her usual calm.
"They're ready for you in the NICU," she said.
May you like
"If you want to go see her."
I got up.
