Chapter 10 - The Blue Folder

Mara told me not to go back to the mansion, so I didn't. No piece of paper was worth walking into a room where Marcus could corner me again.

Instead, Eleanor went to her own lawyer. With counsel present, she gave a statement about the breakfast confrontation and described the missing blue folder. Her attorney arranged a voluntary turnover of several documents Eleanor personally possessed. The papers were voluntary, not seized.

At five, Mara called me into her office.

"We found something," she said.

The folder was thinner than I expected. It held letters, meeting notes, and a small photograph of my mother standing outside Alder Court the year before she died. She wore a raincoat and looked exhausted, but she was smiling beside Walter Pierce.

I ran my thumb along the photograph. Mom had never told me she worked there.

One letter was addressed to Arthur.

*The reserve account is not discretionary cash. If you divert it, families will bear the damage, and the truth will eventually surface. I am keeping copies outside the company.*

A second letter, dated three days later, was never mailed. Its first line stopped me cold.

*If anything happens to me, tell Ivy the shares were meant to give her a voice, not a fortune.*

My mother died in a highway collision. The police had ruled it an accident. I refused to turn grief into a conspiracy. But the words explained why she had fought so fiercely for those voting rights.

At the bottom of the folder was a page from the old operating agreement. Next to the voting clause, Mom had written: Independent review required before any related-party payment above $500,000.

Mara leaned across the table. "That provision may be enforceable. We've asked the court to examine the company's governance."

"Then Arthur knew."

"He appears to have known at least some of it. We need his account."

That evening Arthur called me for the first time without Marcus beside him.

"Your mother was right," he said, his voice thin. "And I was a coward."

"About what?"

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He began to answer, then broke off. In the distance a door slammed.

"He's here," Arthur whispered. "Ivy, tell the police to look at the old bridge account."