Chapter 6 - Eight Percent
Sophie remembered the conversation word for word.
Children often did.
Adults forgot because they knew too much.
Three days before Daniel disappeared, Celeste had driven Sophie home from piano lessons.
Sophie was wearing the silver locket.
“Aunt Celeste asked why Dad gave it back to me,” Sophie said.
“Back?” Laura asked.
Sophie nodded.
“He borrowed it.”
Daniel looked ashamed.
“How long?”
“One night.”
“What did Celeste say?”
“She said, ‘Did Daddy put anything inside?’”
Laura looked at Daniel.
He whispered, “She already suspected.”
Sophie continued.
“I said there was just a picture. Then she said, ‘If you ever lose it, tell me first.’”
Detective Torres wrote everything down.
“Did your aunt touch the locket?”
“No.”
“Did she ask you to give it to her?”
“No.”
Laura remembered Celeste’s face in the greenhouse.
The moment she saw that necklace.
That had not been random panic.
She had been looking for it.
Search teams returned to Halcyon House that afternoon.
The storm had buried the grounds under nearly eighteen inches of snow.
Deputies marked a wide grid outside the greenhouse.
Metal detectors were nearly useless near the old stone foundation.
The locket did not appear.
Celeste did.
Not physically.
Through lawyers.
Her attorney filed an emergency corporate notice declaring that Ashcroft Nominee LLC had granted its voting proxy to Celeste.
Eight disputed percent.
Combined with Celeste’s forty-nine percent, it gave her fifty-seven percent control.
Laura’s attorney, Samuel Reed, called from Hartford.
“They’re moving fast.”
“Can they do that?”
“They can try.”
“I want an injunction.”
“I’m filing one.”
“Today.”
“Laura—”
“Today.”
By five o’clock they were before a Superior Court judge on an emergency application.
The hearing took place remotely.
Celeste sat beside her attorney.
Laura sat beside Samuel.
Daniel listened from the hospital but was not permitted to speak.
Samuel argued that the eight-percent share transfer was fraudulent and that allowing Celeste to exercise those votes could cause irreparable harm.
Celeste’s attorney held up the signed transfer agreement.
“My client is not the purchaser. Ashcroft is.”
“Who owns Ashcroft?” the judge asked.
“That information is subject to a confidentiality agreement.”
The judge’s expression hardened.
“Not in my courtroom.”
The attorney hesitated.
“A trust.”
“For whom?”
“We are verifying beneficial ownership.”
Samuel almost laughed.
“You are exercising a proxy from an entity whose owner you cannot identify?”
Celeste finally spoke.
“I didn’t create Ashcroft.”
Laura looked at her.
“But you accepted its votes.”
“The company is collapsing.”
“Because you stole from it.”
“Enough,” the judge said.
Celeste’s attorney then presented the photograph.
Laura signing papers after Victor’s death.
The judge enlarged it.
“Mrs. Hayes, is that you?”
“Yes.”
“Is that your signature on the disputed agreement?”
“It looks like mine.”
“Did you sign this document?”
“No.”
“You are certain?”
Laura opened her mouth.
Then stopped.
She remembered the stacks.
The grief.
The wine Celeste kept refilling.
The pages marked with yellow tabs.
“I don’t remember signing it.”
The opposing attorney seized the distinction.
“So you cannot testify that you did not.”
“I know I would never sell eight percent of my company for one-point-six million dollars.”
“Perhaps you needed liquidity.”
“I did not.”
“Your husband transferred six hundred thousand dollars without board approval.”
Laura’s face heated.
“That had nothing to do with me.”
“Your marriage was under strain.”
Samuel objected.
The judge cut off the argument.
Then Celeste’s attorney played a video.
Laura had never seen it.
The dining room.
Three years earlier.
Celeste behind the camera.
Laura signing papers.
Owen Kessler sitting across from her.
At one point Owen said, “This one gives flexibility if either sister needs to move equity later.”
Laura, exhausted, barely looked up.
“What am I signing?”
Celeste answered off camera.
“Dad’s reorganization package.”
Laura signed.
The video ended.
Silence filled the hearing.
Laura looked at Samuel.
His expression had changed.
The judge said, “That is troubling.”
“It’s misleading,” Laura said.
“Perhaps. But it exists.”
The court granted only a limited temporary order.
Celeste could not sell the disputed eight-percent block.
But the judge declined to prevent Ashcroft from voting pending a full evidentiary hearing.
It was a devastating compromise.
That evening, Celeste called an emergency shareholder meeting.
Using Ashcroft’s proxy, she voted to remove Laura as chief executive and appoint herself interim CEO.
Laura listened over speakerphone.
“I built this company with Dad,” she said.
Celeste’s voice remained calm.
“No. Dad built it.”
“I ran it for nine years.”
“And I kept it alive when you wanted to sell.”
Laura went still.
“That’s what this is about?”
“You were going to take fifty-one million dollars and let strangers carve up everything he made.”
“The buyer was keeping the properties.”
“You believed them?”
“I believed the numbers.”
“That has always been your problem.”
Laura laughed bitterly.
“And yours?”
Celeste’s voice lowered.
“I know what things cost.”
The call ended.
That night, Laura stood outside Naomi’s condominium while Sophie slept inside.
Daniel had been discharged and sat in the passenger seat of Laura’s SUV.
They were not ready to share a room.
But neither wanted to be alone.
Daniel said, “She always hated that Victor chose you as CEO.”
“Dad chose me because Celeste didn’t want the public part.”
“That’s what she told you.”
Laura stared ahead.
“What are you saying?”
“Victor talked to me before he died.”
“When?”
“Two weeks before.”
Laura turned sharply.
Daniel continued.
“He was worried about Celeste.”
“Why?”
“He said she had begun treating the company like something she was owed.”
Laura’s voice became cold.
“And you never told me this either?”
“I thought it was grief talking.”
“That excuse is getting old.”
Daniel nodded.
“I know.”
His phone, newly issued by police, rang.
Naomi.
Daniel answered.
He listened.
Then sat forward.
“What?”
Laura watched his face.
“Say that again.”
He put the call on speaker.
Naomi’s voice filled the car.
“We traced the one-point-six-million-dollar payment supposedly made to Laura for the eight-percent shares.”
Laura held her breath.
“Where did it come from?”
Naomi answered.
“Avery Heritage Properties.”
Laura stared at Daniel.
May you like
Naomi continued.
“The company appears to have financed the purchase of its own stolen control.”
