Chapter 4 - The Woman With Eleven Percent
By eight the next morning, three attorneys had confirmed it.
Loretta Quinn legally controlled eleven percent of Varga Consolidated through Blue Harbour Holdings.
Annelise had purchased the shares years earlier.
Not with stolen money.
With compensation she received after helping the Varga family recover losses.
Evelyn had preserved the shares inside a trust.
Loretta felt sick.
“I don't want them.”
Stellan stood across the conference room.
“That doesn't mean you should surrender them.”
“They're your family's company.”
“They're yours.”
“I didn't earn them.”
“My father believed your mother did.”
Loretta looked at Evelyn.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because Annelise specifically instructed us not to until the trust activated.”
“Why twenty-six?”
“She said by then you'd know whether you wanted your own life.”
Loretta laughed softly.
Her mother had been right.
At twenty-six Loretta knew exactly what she wanted.
Freedom.
What she had not expected was that freedom would arrive in the form of voting shares worth millions.
Stellan slid a valuation report toward her.
Loretta did not touch it.
“I don't want to know.”
“You should.”
“No.”
“Loretta.”
“I spent six years trying to save fourteen thousand dollars.”
Her voice cracked.
“If you tell me this is worth twenty million, I don't know how I'm supposed to remain the same person.”
Stellan's expression softened.
“You don't have to remain the same person.”
That frightened her more than the money.
Because Victor had always changed depending on what he wanted.
Loretta had built her identity around being the opposite.
Dependable.
Careful.
Predictable.
Stellan seemed to understand.
“Don't make any decisions today.”
He pushed the report aside.
“Or tomorrow.”
“Your board won't wait forever.”
“They can wait longer than you think.”
Unfortunately they couldn't.
At noon, Varga Consolidated received an emergency board proposal.
Malcolm Reed wanted to purchase one of the company's distressed lending portfolios through an investment group.
On paper, it appeared generous.
Loretta reviewed the documents.
Within ten minutes she knew something was wrong.
“The valuation model is manipulated.”
Stellan watched her.
“How?”
“They're forecasting defaults using the worst twelve-month period in the portfolio's history.”
She turned several pages.
“Then they're valuing recoveries using the lowest historical percentage.”
“How much difference?”
Loretta calculated.
“At least sixty million.”
Evelyn leaned forward.
“So Reed is trying to buy assets sixty million below reasonable value.”
“More.”
Loretta tapped another page.
“This company buying the portfolio has a hidden beneficial owner.”
“Who?”
“I don't know yet.”
She worked for three hours.
Every layer led to another company.
But Annelise had taught her to look for repeated imperfections.
People could create new corporations.
They reused habits.
Same registered agents.
Same formatting.
Same payment dates.
Eventually Loretta found the pattern.
A consulting fee of $18,700.
Her breath caught.
“It's him.”
Stellan leaned over her shoulder.
“Reed?”
“Same number.”
The missing 187 had never been a single theft.
It was a signature.
Malcolm used multiples of 18,700 as internal markers.
A system for moving funds among controlled companies.
Loretta looked at Stellan.
“He's trying to finish whatever he started fourteen years ago.”
That afternoon Malcolm requested a meeting.
To everyone's surprise, Loretta accepted.
Stellan looked at her.
“You don't owe him a conversation.”
“I know.”
“Then why meet?”
“Because he believes I'm still Victor's frightened stepdaughter.”
She closed the folder.
“I'd like him to keep believing that.”
They met in the mansion's main salon.
Malcolm Reed was seventy now.
Silver hair.
Perfect navy suit.
Gentle voice.
He looked like someone's favorite professor.
“Loretta.”
He smiled warmly.
“You look exactly like Annelise.”
Loretta hated him instantly for using her mother's name like an old friend.
“Sit.”
Malcolm glanced at Stellan.
“I hoped we might speak privately.”
“No.”
Loretta said it before Stellan could answer.
Malcolm's smile flickered.
“Of course.”
He sat.
For twenty minutes Malcolm told a beautifully constructed story.
Victor was irresponsible.
Annelise became obsessed with accounting inconsistencies.
The Varga family used her.
Evelyn concealed shares from Loretta.
Stellan now wanted Loretta's vote.
Everyone had an agenda.
Everyone except Malcolm.
Loretta listened.
Then she asked one question.
“What was my mother's favorite restaurant?”
Malcolm blinked.
“I'm sorry?”
“You've spent twenty minutes describing how close you were.”
She smiled.
“What restaurant did she always choose on her birthday?”
Malcolm hesitated.
Loretta knew then.
He had attended their home.
Their holidays.
Their lives.
But he had never actually cared about Annelise.
People who cared remembered ordinary things.
Victor knew.
Loretta knew.
Her mother loved a tiny Italian restaurant with terrible parking because the owner always brought complimentary lemon cake.
Malcolm did not know because people were numbers to him.
Assets.
Liabilities.
Useful relationships.
“You don't remember,” Loretta said.
His expression cooled.
“This is childish.”
“No. It's accounting.”
“What?”
“You keep talking about people as though the emotional details don't matter.”
Loretta leaned forward.
“My mother taught me that small inconsistencies reveal the large ones.”
Malcolm stood.
“I came here to help you.”
“You came because you need my eleven percent.”
The room became silent.
Malcolm stared.
Then smiled.
“Victor told you.”
“No.”
That answer unsettled him.
Loretta continued.
“Victor doesn't understand the shares.”
“He understands more than you think.”
“Then why did he give you the blue ledger?”
Malcolm's face changed.
Barely.
But enough.
Loretta had guessed.
Now she knew.
Stellan saw it too.
Malcolm reached for his briefcase.
“This meeting is over.”
Loretta remained seated.
“Yes.”
He headed toward the door.
Then stopped.
“You think Stellan is different?”
Loretta looked at him.
“He's offering you respect because he needs your vote.”
Stellan showed no reaction.
Malcolm smiled.
“Ask what happens after you vote his way.”
Then he left.
Loretta did ask.
“What happens?”
Stellan looked at her.
“If you vote my way?”
“Yes.”
“Whatever you choose.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“It is.”
She stood.
“Suppose I vote against you.”
“Then I lose.”
“And?”
“And I go to work the next morning.”
Loretta searched his face.
“You'd let me keep the shares?”
“They're not mine to let you keep.”
There it was again.
The line Stellan never crossed.
The difference between permission and ownership.
Loretta looked away.
Her feelings for him had become inconvenient.
Dangerously inconvenient.
That night, while reviewing the blue-ledger transactions reconstructed from Annelise's black ledger, Loretta noticed something.
Malcolm had transferred money through a company called LQ Advisory.
The initials looked obvious.
Loretta Quinn.
But the company had existed before Loretta was born.
She checked incorporation documents.
Original owner:
Louisa Quinn.
Loretta frowned.
Her grandmother.
A woman Annelise had always said died before Loretta was born.
Loretta opened the attached identification record.
Louisa Quinn was not dead.
May you like
She was alive.
And according to the address listed three months earlier, she lived less than thirty miles away.
