The choice hung between us like the bitter smell of the damp wool clinging to my skin. I could take the sixty thousand dollars, slip out the rear alley before the precinct cruisers arrived, and spend the rest of my life watching the Whitmore name stamped onto the clothing my grandfather designed. I would have comfort, quiet, and the permanent status of an incompetent ward living on an allowance granted by the woman who had just had me thrown into the rain.
Or I could carry Arthur’s own register upstairs, straight into the private executive suite where the Whitmores and their attorneys sat with their fountain pens uncapped.
"Put the money back in your pocket, Arthur," I said.
His mouth worked silently. "Clara, please. If you take that book upstairs, I go to federal prison. They will take my pension. They will take my wife’s medical coverage."
"You should have thought about your wife's medical coverage before you signed my name to a bankruptcy petition," I told him.
I grabbed the heavy bronze seal and slipped it into the deep, torn pocket of my coat, its cold metal resting heavy against my thigh. I gathered the certified state audit, the J. P. Morgan escrow pouch, and the open notary register, tucking them under my left arm against the damp wool.
Arthur swung his ebony cane toward my chest, a desperate, clumsy arc aimed at knocking the files from my grip.
I stepped inside the swing. The shaft of the cane struck my left shoulder with a dull, wooden thud, but I caught the polished wood beneath the grip, wrenched it out of his hand, and threw it across the concrete floor. It clattered against the bottom rung of the spiral staircase, spinning out into the shadows.
Arthur lost his balance, his good knee buckling as he collapsed heavily against the steel sorting table, knocking the half-empty tumbler of Scotch onto the floor. The glass shattered, amber liquor pooling across the bare gray concrete.
I turned to the heavy iron archive door.
I pulled the thick steel slab shut behind me, slotted my grandfather’s barrel key into the heavy brass tumbler, and turned it twice until the deadbolts slid into the jamb with a final, echoing thud. Through the iron viewport, Arthur pressed his pale face against the wire-reinforced glass, his hands slapping uselessly against the panel, pleading through the soundproof barrier.
I turned toward the freight elevator.
Above me, through the concrete joists of the ceiling, I heard the faint, muffled chime of the executive lift arriving on the mezzanine floor. The courier from J. P. Morgan was stepping into the boardroom. I reached out, pulled the heavy iron scissor-gate open, and stepped inside the dark wooden cage.
CHAPTER 3: The Audit That Broke Escrow
The freight lift climbed with a heavy, shuddering groan, the grease-slicked cables humming against the iron counterweights inside the brick shaft. Through the diamond mesh of the sliding gate, the rough masonry of the building’s spine slipped downward, floor by floor, until the industrial concrete gave way to the soundproofed backing of the mezzanine wainscoting. I pulled the manual floor lever back to neutral. The cage leveled with a soft pneumatic hiss, settling flush against the oak threshold of the executive service corridor.
I checked the weight in my coat. The heavy bronze signet seal was cold against my hip, its edges dragging down the torn seam of the pocket. Under my left arm, pressed flat against the damp wool, were the green leather notary register, the sealed blue-foil J. P. Morgan dispatch pouch, and the certified state audit bearing the tax commissioner's embossed ribbon. My fingers were stiff from the October sleet, my boots still tracked gray slush across the floor, but my breathing had slowed to a steady, deliberate rhythm.
The mezzanine was silent except for the muffled cadence of voices drifting from the boardroom at the end of the hall.
Maison Mercer’s private director’s suite had been built by my grandfather in 1938, paneled in matched French walnut with heavy brass escutcheons and thick wool carpeting designed to swallow the sound of raised voices. The double doors were latched but not locked. Through the frosted glass transom above the lintel, the warm glow of the recessed library lamps cut through the gloom of the corridor.
I did not knock. I placed my palm against the bronze push-plate of the right-hand door and shoved it open.
The door swung back against its brass floor-stop with a sharp, heavy report that cut through the conversation like a gunshot.
Four people were gathered around the long table. At the center sat Victoria Whitmore, her white fox stole draped over the back of an oxblood leather chair, an uncapped Montblanc fountain pen held lightly between her manicured fingers. To her right sat Julian Whitmore’s lead transactional attorney, a sharp-featured man named Henderson whose briefcase lay open like an accordion of legal vellum. Across from them sat Robert Vance, my father’s younger cousin who oversaw the commercial licensing desk, his silk tie pulled loose, staring down into an empty crystal water glass with the hollow look of a man who had already surrendered his pride.