Chapter 5 - The Woman Who Brought Banana Bread
Margaret came to my house the next morning.
She brought banana bread.
That was exactly the kind of thing Margaret did.
She could threaten your life while adjusting a centerpiece.
I opened the door but didn’t step aside.
“Nora.”
“Margaret.”
“May I come in?”
“No.”
Her smile tightened.
“Are the boys here?”
“No.”
“Good.”
That answer told me enough.
“What do you want?”
“To save this family.”
I almost laughed.
“You were in the corporate archive at three in the morning.”
Her face changed.
Barely.
But it changed.
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“I have a photograph.”
Silence.
She looked down the street.
Then back at me.
“Five million.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“Five million dollars. The Edina house. Joint custody.”
I stared at her.
“You came here to buy me?”
“I came here to end this before everyone loses.”
“Everyone?”
“Your children.”
“Don’t use them.”
“You think scandal doesn’t affect children?”
“You know what affects children? Their father telling them their mother won’t have enough money to keep them.”
Margaret looked away.
Only for a second.
It was the first sign of shame I had ever seen from her.
Then she recovered.
“You don’t understand the scale of what you’re doing.”
“I understand perfectly.”
“No. You found old documents and suddenly think you built everything.”
“I did build something.”
“Tristan made it matter.”
There it was.
The sentence I had heard in a hundred different forms.
Tristan made you important.
Tristan gave your work value.
Tristan made the world notice.
I stepped closer.
“My software paid his first payroll.”
“He turned that into a national company.”
“And that gave him permission to forge my signature?”
She went quiet.
I smiled.
“Interesting.”
“I didn’t say he did.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Margaret’s voice lowered.
“You were never supposed to see the second ledger.”
I stopped breathing.
“What second ledger?”
She realized immediately.
Her mouth closed.
I leaned against the doorframe.
“Thank you.”
“Nora—”
My phone rang.
Leah.
I answered without taking my eyes off Margaret.
“What?”
“Nora, the forensic team found another ownership record.”
Margaret’s face went white.
“The second ledger?”
Leah paused.
“How do you know about that?”
I smiled at Margaret.
“Lucky guess.”
“What does it show?”
Leah’s voice changed.
“It’s worse than we thought.”
“How?”
“Four years ago, Tristan pledged shares owned by Mercer Ridge Holdings as collateral.”
My heart kicked.
“For what?”
“A private credit facility.”
“How much?”
“Thirty-seven million dollars.”
I stared at Margaret.
She closed her eyes.
“You knew,” I said.
She said nothing.
“Margaret.”
Her eyes opened again.
“It was supposed to be temporary.”
I felt something inside me go perfectly still.
“You used my company.”
“To save the company.”
“With forged authorization?”
“You don’t know what happened.”
“No.”
I stepped backward and began closing the door.
“But I’m about to.”
For the first time, Margaret looked frightened.
“Nora, if you keep digging, you are going to find things you can’t undo.”
I held her eyes.
May you like
“That’s the first useful thing you’ve said.”
Then I closed the door in her face.
