Chapter 2 - THE COMPANY MY MOTHER SAVED
Reid recovered quickly.
He always did when numbers were involved.
“That note was restructured years ago.”
Everett looked at him.
“No.”
“It was.”
“Show me.”
Silence.
Everett had spent thirty years making billionaires uncomfortable without raising his voice.
Tonight I understood why Reid had spent fifteen years trying to impress him.
Reid looked toward Clara.
Wrong person.
She stepped back.
Everett opened the original agreement.
“My firm administered Margaret Bennett’s private investments. She provided Northbridge with emergency capital in 2012.”
I remembered that year.
Reid sleeping four hours a night.
Payroll problems.
Banks refusing another credit line.
My mother telling me quietly:
“Your husband has built something interesting. Interesting is not the same as solvent.”
Then suddenly the crisis disappeared.
Reid told me an investor had come through.
He never said the investor was my mother.
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“She asked us not to involve you unless necessary.”
I bristled.
Everett noticed.
“She was wrong about that.”
Good answer.
“She believed telling you might make you feel responsible for keeping the marriage together because family money had saved his company.”
My throat tightened.
That sounded exactly like Mom.
Everett continued.
“She structured the investment for your protection instead.”
Northbridge could repay the note normally.
Or, upon certain events, it could convert into equity held for me.
Unauthorized use of Bennett trust assets.
Fraud involving inherited property.
Material misrepresentation in financing.
Three boxes Reid appeared to have checked in one evening.
“Did Reid know?”
Everett looked at him.
“Absolutely.”
I turned.
“You knew my mother’s note could convert.”
Reid’s voice lowered.
“Yes.”
“And you still forged my authorization.”
“I did not forge it.”
“Who did?”
“I don’t know.”
I laughed.
Clara looked toward the door.
I noticed.
“Going somewhere?”
“No.”
Everett’s general counsel approached and whispered something to him.
His expression changed.
“What?”
“The property purchaser has suspended closing.”
Reid stepped forward.
“You can’t do that.”
Everett looked almost bored.
“Hale Capital was the purchaser.”
Silence.
I stared.
“You were buying my apartment?”
“Through a residential investment subsidiary.”
“Why?”
“Reid proposed the sale as evidence he was personally contributing more equity before asking us to invest two hundred million dollars in Northbridge.”
I felt sick.
He had not only promised my home to Clara.
He had used it to impress Everett.
My grief.
My mother’s apartment.
My signature.
Everything became part of his pitch deck.
Then Everett added:
“I questioned the transaction because your mother’s estate records showed the property was separate.”
“That’s why you invited me?”
“Yes.”
Not romance.
Not rescue.
Due diligence.
Good.
“I wanted to ask you privately whether you had truly consented.”
I looked toward Reid.
“And he brought Clara instead.”
Everett’s mouth tightened.
“That clarified certain things.”
Clara finally spoke.
“Reid told me Nora already signed.”
I looked at her.
“You were moving into my home at six tomorrow.”
Her face hardened.
“He said the marriage was over.”
“That explains sleeping with him.”
I held up the payment instructions.
“It does not explain taking my sale proceeds.”
She looked away.
Then Reid’s phone began ringing.
Board chair.
Chief financial officer.
General counsel.
One after another.
The financing suspension was already spreading.
Everett leaned closer to me.
“Nora, there’s something else you should know before Reid’s lawyers begin calling.”
“What?”
“The document he asked you to sign last week doesn’t only ratify the apartment sale.”
I looked down.
“What else?”
“It would convert your mother’s preferred note into ordinary nonvoting debt.”
My stomach dropped.
“If I signed?”
“You would give up the twenty-eight-percent conversion right.”
I stared at Reid.
May you like
He had not only planned to take my home.
He had placed both thefts inside the same packet and called it tax paperwork.
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