Chapter 9: What the Firm Discovered on a Thursday
Three weeks passed.
The Hargrove matter moved faster than anyone had predicted.
James Alcott filed a formal complaint with the state financial regulatory authority on a Monday.
By Wednesday, the firm's outside auditors had been contacted.
By Thursday afternoon, a forensic accountant named Patricia Welles was seated in the firm's conference room with two assistants and a list of accounts that made Ethan's senior partners go very quiet.
Claire learned about Patricia Welles from Marcus.
He called on a Thursday evening, just after six.
"They're in the building," he said.
"Pat Welles.
She's good.
She'll find everything."
"Does Ethan know she's there?"
"He was in the room when they arrived." A pause.
"Claire, he looked at me when they came in.
He knew it was connected to what I'd done."
"Are you all right?"
"I'm fine.
I documented everything from the beginning.
Diana has my records.
I have my own copies." His voice was steady.
"I just wanted you to know it was moving."
"Thank you, Marcus."
"Don't thank me.
I should have told you sooner."
"You told me when I was ready to hear it," she said.
"That's not nothing."
She ended the call and sat for a moment in the kitchen.
Mia was at the table across from her, laptop open, pretending not to listen.
She was a bad pretender.
"That was Marcus?" she said.
"Forensic accountant at the firm."
Mia closed the laptop.
"What happens now?"
"Now Patricia Welles does her job.
And whatever she finds, she reports to the regulatory authority and to James Alcott." Claire stood up.
"And then it's no longer in my hands."
"Does that feel strange?"
Claire thought about it.
"It feels like setting something down that was very heavy," she said.
Diana called at 8:30 the same evening.
"I heard from Alcott's office," she said.
"Welles found three additional accounts we didn't have in our documentation.
There are transfers going back further than the Hargrove project.
Ethan's senior partners are cooperating fully.
They've retained their own separate counsel."
"What does that mean for Ethan?"
"It means the firm is positioning itself as the aggrieved party.
They will not be protecting him." A pause.
"Richard Holt withdrew from representation this afternoon.
Ethan will need new counsel."
Claire set her hand flat on the kitchen counter.
"Richard withdrew."
"Yes."
"Because—"
"Because a client who has lied to you about the scope of a problem is a client who has made your position professionally untenable." Diana's voice was calm but careful.
"This is the point, Claire, where it becomes very important that you do not feel responsible for what happens to Ethan professionally.
The regulatory matter exists because of decisions he made.
Not because of decisions you made."
"I know that."
"I know you know it intellectually.
I'm asking about the other kind of knowing."
Claire was quiet for a moment.
Mia was watching her from across the table.
"I'll be all right," Claire said.
"Good.
Because next week is going to move quickly.
And I need you steady."
After Diana hung up, Claire stood at the counter for a long moment.
Then she turned to her daughter.
"Your father is going to need to retain new legal counsel," she said.
"And the firm is separating from him."
Mia absorbed this.
"Is he going to be okay?
I mean—" She stopped.
"That came out wrong."
"It didn't." Claire sat back down.
"He'll face consequences.
Real ones.
But he's not a bad man, Mia.
He made bad choices.
A lot of them.
But he's not — he won't be destroyed.
He'll come through it."
"Changed."
"Yes.
Changed."
Mia looked at her mother.
"You've been thinking about his side of this whole time, haven't you?
Even while you were building the case."
Claire looked at her daughter.
At her father's hair and her mother's eyes and the particular directness that belonged to neither of them and entirely to herself.
"He was my husband for fourteen years," Claire said.
"I don't stop knowing someone just because they've hurt me."
Mia reached across the table and put her hand over her mother's.
They sat like that for a while.
Then Claire's phone lit up with a number she didn't recognize.
She answered.
"Mrs.
Whitmore?" The voice was a young man's.
Formal but slightly uncertain.
"My name is Daniel Hargrove.
Gregory's son.
I'm sorry to call in the evening.
My father said you had been — he said you were the one who started this moving.
I just wanted to say." He paused.
"Thank you.
Our family — we didn't know.
And if you hadn't—"
"Your family trusted someone they had every reason to trust," Claire said.
"I'm glad it's being corrected."
"I hope this is — I hope it gets easier for you.
After."
May you like
Claire looked at her daughter across the table.
"It already is," she said.
