Chapter 14 - The Best Friend
Lauren Mercer answered on the second ring.
"Claire? I've been calling you all morning. Are you okay?"
Her voice sounded exactly as it always did: warm, direct, familiar.
Claire hated that.
"Where are you?"
"At the foundation. Why?"
"Stay there."
A pause.
"That sounded ominous."
"Good."
Claire hung up.
She arrived with Officer Nolan and two financial-crimes investigators.
Lauren stood in the glass conference room wearing a camel coat and holding a paper cup of tea.
"What is going on?"
Claire closed the door.
"Do you know Richard Vale?"
Lauren's face did not change.
Too controlled.
"Everyone knows Richard Vale."
"Do you know him personally?"
"No."
"Do you know Graystone Residential Analytics?"
Now the cup trembled.
Barely.
Claire saw it.
"Lauren."
"What?"
"Don't make me ask you three times."
Lauren placed the cup down.
"I signed a consulting agreement."
Claire felt the betrayal before she understood the words.
"With Graystone?"
"Two years ago."
"For what?"
"Foundation risk review."
"You brought them into my organization?"
"They approached me. They said they were checking cybersecurity vulnerabilities."
Nolan asked, "Did you provide executive access logs?"
Lauren looked away.
"Yes."
"Signature records?"
"Some."
Claire's voice dropped.
"My travel schedule?"
Lauren's eyes filled.
"Claire, I didn't know."
"You didn't know a secret company paying you personally wanted my schedule?"
"They told me it was confidential compliance work."
"How much?"
Lauren said nothing.
Nolan answered from a bank record on her tablet.
"Four hundred and eighty thousand dollars over twenty-four months."
Claire stared at her oldest friend.
"You sold me for twenty thousand dollars a month."
"No."
"That's the math."
Lauren covered her mouth.
"I was in debt. My mother needed care. I thought I could stop after the first report. Then they had the payments, the emails - everything."
Claire had heard the same excuse from Ethan.
Debt.
Pressure.
No way out.
Always somebody else's hand on the wheel.
"Did you give them the trust code?"
"I never had it."
"Did you help them build a competency case against me?"
Lauren looked horrified.
"No."
Nolan slid a printed email across the table.
It had been recovered from Graystone's server that morning.
FROM: L.M.
SUBJECT: C.B.C. BEHAVIORAL INCIDENTS
Lauren stared at it.
"I didn't write that."
Claire read the first paragraph.
It described private arguments only Lauren had witnessed.
Then she reached the signature.
The email was signed not Lauren Mercer.
May you like
It was signed Lillian March.
Evelyn's daughter.
