Chapter 7 - The Morning After Boxing Day
By December 26th, the suburban tranquility of Meadowbrook Lane had completely decomposed.
Richard Bennett sat behind the massive walnut desk in his home office, surrounded by half-empty mugs of black coffee and crumpled blueprints. The room smelled of desperation, stale sweat, and cheap cigar smoke.
His computer screen glared with red error messages.
*“Access Denied: Enterprise Admin Privileges Revoked.”*
*“Access Denied: Master Encryption Key Required.”*
“What do you mean, she revoked them?” Richard roared at his monitor, as if the Dell desktop were capable of feeling his wrath.
Standing in the doorway, pale and disheveled in an unwashed velour tracksuit, was Linda. Her hair had not been brushed, and her eyes were rimmed with red circles.
“Richard,” she whispered. “The bank called.”
Richard didn't look up. “Tell them we’ll make the quarterly payment next week.”
“It’s not the commercial loan, Richard. It’s the personal line of credit on this house.” Linda’s voice shook so hard her teeth clicked. “The automatic transfer from Claire’s account didn't clear this morning. The bank says the account was closed yesterday afternoon via wire transfer to an overseas institution.”
Richard’s head jerked up. His eyes bulged. “Closed? She closed her savings account?”
“She withdrew everything,” Linda whimpered. “Four hundred and eighty thousand dollars.”
“That wasn't her money!” Richard screamed, rising from his chair so violently it tipped backward, crashing into the mahogany bookshelves. “That was the operating reserve for Bennett & Associates! I deposited the checks from the Radnor contract into that account to keep it out of the commercial tax audit!”
“Well, you put her name on the account, Richard!” Linda screamed back, her veneer of delicate helplessness shattering into hysterical rage. “You put her name on it because you were being investigated by the Department of Revenue in 2021! You told me it was safe because Claire would never dare touch it! You told me she was terrified of you!”
“She *was* terrified of me!” Richard yelled, slamming both fists onto the desk.
In the living room, the front door rattled open.
Evan stumbled inside. He looked like a ghost. He was still wearing the same trousers he had worn on Christmas Eve, his dress shirt wrinkled and stained with coffee. He had spent the last thirty-six hours pacing the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton in Philadelphia, hoping to catch Marcus Kane before he left for New York, only to be escorted out by hotel security at dawn.
“It’s over,” Evan said, walking into the study and dropping onto the leather chesterfield like a corpse. “It’s all over.”
“Did you speak to Marcus?” Richard demanded.
Evan let out a dry, manic laugh. “Marcus won't take my calls. His executive assistant emailed me an hour ago. Kane & Vance has placed me on administrative leave with pay, pending an internal compliance review.”
“With pay?” Linda grasped at the straw like a drowning woman. “Well, that’s good, darling! That means you’re still an employee!”
“Do you know what an administrative compliance review means in private equity, Mom?” Evan looked at her with pure hatred. “It means they’ve hired an outside forensic auditing firm to go through every single presentation, every financial model, and every municipal contract I’ve submitted since the day I was hired.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a thumb drive.
“Melissa’s father called me this morning,” Evan whispered, his voice cracking into a high, frightened squeak. “Arthur Vance himself. He told me that if I ever contact Melissa again, he will personally file a civil suit for intellectual property theft on behalf of Claire Bennett.”
Richard froze. “What does Arthur Vance know about our intellectual property?”
“Melissa found Claire’s draft registers in my car,” Evan said, staring blankly at the floor. “The ones where Claire marked her digital signatures on the Stamford corporate designs. The ones I claimed were mine. Dad… Marcus Kane’s biggest investor in the Stamford project is Arthur Vance. If Vance pulls his capital, Kane & Vance will collapse. And Marcus will feed me to the Securities and Exchange Commission just to save his own skin.”
The office went deathly quiet.
The radiator clanked against the wall—a dull, metallic thud that sounded like a prison door locking shut.
“We have to get her back,” Evan whispered, looking up at his father with eyes wide with terror. “Dad, you don't understand. We don't need Claire to forgive us. We need her to sign the intellectual property releases. If she doesn't sign them by January 15th, I’m going to prison.”
Richard stared at his son. For the first time in his life, the old man felt a cold trickle of sweat run down his spine.
He looked down at the legal pad on his desk—the one he had used to write his twenty-three demands on Christmas Eve.
Beside it sat a certified letter that had just arrived via courier from Radnor Township.
He opened it with trembling fingers.
*“Dear Mr. Bennett: Due to the revocation of the professional architectural seal attached to File #4402 (Radnor Public Library Expansion), all permits are hereby suspended. A hearing has been scheduled before the Licensing Board for January 8th. The presence of the primary architect of record, Ms. Claire Bennett, is mandatory.”*
Richard’s hand shook so violently the paper fluttered against the desk.
May you like
“Where is she?” Richard choked out. “Where in Rome did she go?”
***