Chapter 5 - The Twenty-Five Percent
Rebecca refused to let Laura touch the recorder again.
A forensic technician named Aaron Pike arrived from Denver with an evidence kit and copied the device in front of Laura, Maya, Miles, and two clinic attorneys.
The recorder contained ninety-four minutes.
Most of it was ordinary noise.
Then, at minute forty-one, Celeste’s voice appeared.
“The custody petition alone doesn’t solve the voting problem.”
Owen answered.
“It does if Laura is removed as trustee.”
“And if the judge refuses?”
“Harlan gives us incapacity.”
A chair scraped.
Celeste said, “I want this done before Blackridge sends the revised offer.”
Laura paused the playback.
“Blackridge?”
Rebecca knew the name.
“Private equity.”
Vale Peak Resorts owned six luxury mountain properties, three coastal resorts, the private clinic, and valuable undeveloped land outside Aspen.
Laura’s father had refused acquisition offers for years.
Rebecca opened her laptop.
“Blackridge Capital approached Vale Peak eighteen months ago.”
“I rejected them.”
“You did.”
“Owen agreed with me.”
“Apparently not.”
The recording continued.
Owen said, “If you can vote Emma’s twenty-five percent with your thirty-three, Blackridge gets its majority.”
Celeste replied, “And Laura gets to learn that Dad should never have made her the trustee.”
Laura stopped the audio again.
There it was.
The entire structure.
Charles Vale had left Laura forty-two percent of Vale Peak.
Celeste received thirty-three percent.
Emma received twenty-five percent through a trust, with Laura as trustee until Emma turned twenty-five.
Laura effectively controlled sixty-seven percent.
If she were removed as trustee and Celeste became successor trustee, Celeste would control fifty-eight.
Enough to sell.
“How much is Blackridge offering?” Laura asked.
Rebecca searched public financing databases.
“Rumored valuation around one-point-eight billion.”
Laura did the arithmetic.
Celeste’s thirty-three percent could be worth nearly six hundred million.
But that was not enough to explain six months of falsified medical records.
“What does Owen get?”
They kept listening.
At minute fifty-eight, he answered.
“Snowglass gets twelve million at closing.”
Laura looked at Rebecca.
“Snowglass.”
Rebecca typed.
A Delaware LLC.
Created fourteen months earlier.
Registered agent hidden behind a corporate-service company.
Aaron said, “There’s more.”
The recorder captured Celeste asking:
“And Nathan?”
Owen replied, “His nine hundred is handled.”
Laura went cold.
Nine hundred.
Not dollars.
Not nine hundred dollars.
Nathan had recently paid off a loan against his investment firm.
Nine hundred thousand dollars.
Laura called him.
He answered on the fourth ring.
“What?”
“What is Snowglass?”
Silence.
Laura closed her eyes.
“You know.”
“I’ve heard the name.”
“Did Snowglass pay your debt?”
Nathan said nothing.
Rebecca whispered, “Do not accuse him of a crime yet.”
Laura ignored her.
“Nine hundred thousand dollars, Nathan.”
“Laura—”
“Did Celeste pay you?”
“It was not a payment.”
“What was it?”
“A loan.”
“Where’s the loan agreement?”
Another pause.
“That’s what I thought.”
Nathan’s voice became defensive.
“My firm was in trouble.”
“So you sold me.”
“I didn’t sell you.”
“You signed an affidavit.”
“I signed what I believed.”
“You believed I was an addict?”
“I believed you were exhausted.”
“You swore I was unsafe.”
“I said I was concerned.”
“You were paid nine hundred thousand dollars.”
Emma stirred in the adjoining room.
Laura lowered her voice.
“You used our daughter to refinance your life.”
Nathan whispered, “You don’t understand.”
“Then explain.”
“Celeste said your father never wanted you controlling Emma’s shares.”
Laura felt a pressure behind her ribs.
“She showed me letters,” Nathan continued.
“What letters?”
“From Charles.”
“Like the one at the board meeting?”
“Yes.”
Rebecca looked sharply at Laura.
Nathan said, “He thought you were too emotionally involved to separate Emma’s interests from yours.”
“My father wrote the trust.”
“He could have changed his mind.”
“Did you verify the letters?”
“No.”
“You didn’t want to.”
Nathan snapped, “I was drowning.”
“So you grabbed our daughter on the way down.”
She ended the call.
For several seconds, no one spoke.
Then Aaron said, “I found data in the recorder memory that may matter.”
The device had not merely recorded audio.
It had once been connected to a computer.
The device log showed the computer name.
OVALEPEAK-CFO-02
Owen’s workstation.
That would help authenticate possession.
Then Aaron found deleted file fragments.
One filename remained intact.
BLACKRIDGE_SIDELETTER_FINAL
Rebecca leaned closer.
“A side letter is often used to document terms outside the main transaction.”
“Can you recover it?”
“Maybe.”
“How long?”
Aaron shook his head.
“I won’t promise.”
Laura hated waiting.
It made her reckless.
But this time she did not push.
Instead she walked into Emma’s room.
Emma was awake, drawing a rabbit beneath a purple mountain.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Are you in trouble?”
Laura sat beside her.
“Some grown-ups are telling lies.”
Emma looked worried.
“Because I found the silver thing?”
“No.”
“If I didn’t pick it up—”
Laura touched her hand.
“Then they still would have lied.”
“Did I make Aunt Celeste mad?”
“Aunt Celeste was already making choices.”
Emma thought about that.
Then she whispered, “Mr. Owen said something else.”
Laura became still.
“What?”
“He said, ‘She’ll sign like last time.’”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Aunt Celeste answer?”
Emma nodded.
“What did she say?”
Emma looked at Snowy.
“She said, ‘Nathan signed. Harlan signed. Miles will sign too.’”
Laura’s heartbeat quickened.
Miles.
Security Chief Miles Keane.
The man preserving their evidence.
Laura stepped into the hallway.
Miles was standing at the far end talking on his phone.
He saw her.
Immediately, he ended the call.
May you like
Laura remembered the deleted security footage under his credentials.
For the first time, she wondered whether Miles’ frightened explanation had been another performance.
