Chapter 2 - The Audit of Arthur Sterling
The morning after Thanksgiving smelled of cold wet leaves and the faint, chemical tang of the road salt the county highway trucks had dropped during the night's hard freeze.
By eight-thirty, I was sitting in the back of a black Lincoln Navigator idling at the foot of my parents' circular driveway in Westchester. The driver, a man named Henderson who had worked for my private security detail for four years, kept the engine ticking over silently while I reviewed the final asset reallocation tables on my tablet.
Wren Medical Systems was closing its books at noon European time. Once Daniel executed the transfer, my personal net worth would cross the three-hundred-million-dollar threshold, placing me comfortably within a tax bracket that my father didn't even know existed.
My phone rang while I was halfway through a legal memorandum concerning our European patents.
It was Dad.
"Elise," his voice came through the car's Bluetooth system, sharp and brisk, devoid of any morning pleasantness. "Are you still here in town?"
"I’m outside," I said.
A pause. "Outside where?"
"In the driveway."
There was a muffled sound of a door opening, followed by the crunch of heavy boots on gravel. A moment later, the front door of the colonial house swung wide, and my father appeared on the portico. He was wearing his weekend uniform: a navy blazer with brass buttons, pressed khakis, and loafers without socks, despite the fact that the frost was still glistening on the lawn.
He spotted the Lincoln idling near the azalea bushes. His brow furrowed.
He lowered his phone from his ear as he walked down the stone steps, his eyes narrowing as he took in the vehicle—the tinted privacy glass, the diplomatic plates, the sheer scale of the machine parked where the Honda Civic he assumed I drove should have been.
"Whose car is this?" he demanded, even as he pulled the phone back to his mouth.
"Mine," I said, leaning over and pressing the button to lower the rear window three inches.
Dad stopped five feet from the door, his hand resting on the polished metal frame. He looked inside, taking in the black leather interior, the refrigerated console, and the laptop glowing on my lap. His eyes flicked to my face, then back to the front of the cabin where Henderson sat like a stone monument in a dark suit.
"You rented a town car," he said, and there was a strange, frantic edge to his voice now—a note of disbelief that was beginning to curdle into something resembling panic. "Elise, are you out of your mind? Do you have any idea what a car like this costs by the hour? That’s three months of your salary right there!"
"It’s not rented, Dad," I said quietly.
"Then you leased it. Which is worse. Good God, do you want to end up in bankruptcy court before you’re thirty?" He leaned down, lowering his voice as if Henderson might somehow report him to the state bar. "Marcus told me yesterday that his firm has an opening, but you have to look professional. You can't show up to an interview in a rented limo pretending to be some kind of high-roller. People see through that instantly. It’s pathetic."
I closed my tablet with a soft click.
"I'm not going to an interview at Marcus's firm, Dad."
"Why not?" His face reddened, the color rising from his starched white collar. "Because your pride is too big? Because you’d rather starve in Astoria than admit you need help? Let me tell you something about the real world, young lady—"
"Dad."
The single word wasn't loud, but it had the specific gravity of a gavel coming down in a federal courtroom.
He stopped. His mouth remained half-open, the next lecture dying on his tongue.
"I didn't come here to talk about Marcus's firm," I said, sliding the heavy cognac leather bag—the one from Milan—onto the seat beside me. "I came to drop off the casserole dish Mom lent me last week."
I reached into the footwell, lifted the heavy ceramic dish wrapped in a linen towel, and handed it through the window.
Dad took it automatically, his hands trembling slightly as the weight hit him. He didn't look at the dish. He was staring at my face, really staring at me, perhaps for the first time in twenty-eight years, as if he were trying to find the quiet, awkward middle child he thought he knew behind the dark sunglasses and the cashmere coat.
"What is going on with you, Elise?" he whispered, his voice dropping the booming courtroom cadence he usually used to intimidate junior partners. "Where are you getting this? Who is paying for—"
My phone vibrated against my knee.
I picked it up.
Daniel Cho: Transaction complete. Wire confirmed at Zurich Central Clearing. You are officially divested of the 51%. Fifty-one percent stake liquidated at $102,400,000. Funds settling in your primary holding account now.
I looked down at the screen, watched the confirmation banner slide across the top, and then pressed the power button to darken it.
I looked back up at my father. His hair was ruffled by the cold Westchester wind, and for the first time, he looked old. Not distinguished. Just old.
"You should tell Marcus to buy some put options on Wren Medical today," I said softly.
Dad blinked. "What? What does Wren Medical have to do with anything?"
May you like
"Nothing," I said, rolling up the window. "Just a hunch."
I tapped the partition behind Henderson's head. The big SUV eased away from the curb, crunching smoothly over the gravel drive, leaving my father standing by the azalea bushes with a casserole dish in his hands, staring after us as we turned down the long, winding road toward the highway.
