Chapter 4: What Gerald Knew
They took the elevator to the fourteenth floor.
Charlotte.
Marcus.
Gerald.
Vivienne tried to follow.
Marcus stepped in front of the elevator doors before they closed.
"Not you," he said.
"You cannot do this." Her voice had gone high and thin.
"I will call Richard.
I will call the board.
I will have every one of you —"
The doors closed.
The elevator rose in silence.
Gerald stood in the corner with his hands folded in front of him, staring at the floor indicator above the doors.
He hadn't spoken since the lobby.
Charlotte watched him.
"You knew," she said.
Not an accusation.
A fact.
Gerald's eyes stayed on the numbers.
"I had suspicions."
"That's not what I asked."
The elevator stopped.
The doors opened onto a carpeted hallway lined with framed photographs — Solmere properties from around the world, each one labeled with a year and a city.
Charlotte's mother appeared in two of them.
Standing in front of the original hotel.
Cutting the ribbon at the London opening.
Smiling in a way Charlotte hadn't seen in years before she got sick.
She didn't stop to look at them.
Gerald followed her into the office at the end of the hall.
Marcus came last and closed the door.
The office still had her mother's desk.
Charlotte ran one hand across the edge of it, then sat down behind it.
Neither man spoke.
"Gerald," she said.
"Sit down."
He sat.
"The ownership transfer.
Eleven days after the funeral.
Whose signature authorized it?"
He looked at his hands.
"The document carried your signature, Miss Vale."
"I was in a hospital in Zurich eleven days after my mother's funeral.
I had a fractured collarbone and a concussion from the accident that was supposed to kjll me." She let that sit for a moment.
"So whose signature was it really?"
Gerald's mouth opened.
Closed.
"I have the hospital records," Charlotte said.
"I have the admission date, the discharge date, and the attending physician's sworn statement.
I have a copy of my passport showing I didn't re-enter the country for another six weeks." She opened one of the envelopes and slid a page across the desk toward him.
"Now I'm asking you one more time.
Whose signature was on that transfer document?"
Gerald looked at the page for a long time.
"Vivienne brought it to me," he said finally.
"She said you had signed it before you left the country.
She said your mother had arranged the transition before she passed.
She had a notarized copy.
She had a letter on Solmere letterhead." He stopped.
"I had no reason to believe —"
"You had every reason," Marcus said from across the room.
His voice was quiet but precise.
"I told you something was wrong.
Three weeks after the transfer.
I brought you the discrepancy in the asset filings and you told me to let it go."
Gerald didn't answer.
"Why?" Charlotte asked.
A long silence.
"Because Vivienne told me," Gerald said slowly, "that if I raised questions, she would make sure certain information about my conduct during the 2019 refinancing came to light." He exhaled.
"Information that was exaggerated.
But damaging enough."
Charlotte looked at him steadily.
"She blackmailed you."
"She gave me a choice."
"That's the same thing."
Gerald said nothing.
Charlotte closed the envelope.
"Here is your new choice.
You give me a full written account of everything — the transfer, the notarized letter, the conversation with Vivienne, the 2019 matter, all of it.
You sign it.
You cooperate fully with the legal process that is about to begin." She folded her hands on the desk.
"Or I let the lawyers sort out exactly how much you knew and when."
Gerald looked at her for a long moment.
Then he nodded once.
"Good," Charlotte said.
Marcus's phone buzzed on the table.
He glanced at the screen and his expression shifted.
"What is it?" Charlotte asked.
"Vivienne just called an emergency board meeting," he said.
"Forty-five minutes from now.
Downstairs conference room." He set the phone face-up on the desk.
"She's telling the board you're an impersonator."
May you like
Charlotte stood up.
"Then we'd better not be late."
