Part 2

"Grace?"

Patrick Hayes sounded groggy, the gravel of broken sleep in his voice.

"It’s past eleven.

Is Noah all right?"

Through the reinforced glass of the neonatal intensive care unit, monitors pulsed with rhythmic green lines.

Noah lay beneath an incubator hood, tiny translucent hands curled into tight fists, a cannula taped across his upper lip.

"Noah is stable," I said, leaning my forehead against the cool glass partition.

"Patrick, I’m at Boston Children’s.

I need you to pull the encrypted mirror server for Mercer Urban Development."

A heavy silence settled over the line.

When Patrick spoke again, the drowsiness was completely gone.

"Grace, Daniel told me two months ago that you resigned your operational oversight due to high-risk pregnancy complications."

"Daniel lied to you," I replied, my voice flat and cold.

"Just like he lied when he told our investors he was attending a municipal zoning summit in Miami while spending five days at a luxury resort in St. Lucia.

Check the corporate charter, Patrick.

Who is the registered managing partner with Section Fourteen financial authority?"

I could hear the rapid clicking of mechanical keys through the speaker.

Patrick was at his home office in Brookline.

"You are," Patrick breathed, the sound of his exhalation whistling through his teeth.

"You and your late father's estate hold fifty-one percent of the voting equity under the 2018 operating covenant.

Daniel is only designated as chief executive for public filings."

"Send the master token to my secure drive," I commanded.

"And run a ledger match on all wire distributions exceeding ten thousand dollars cleared during the past seven days."

"Grace, what am I looking for?"

"I’m looking for the money that bought Celeste Morgan's silence, and the line items Vivian used to clean out our operating liquidity," I said.

"Every receipt.

Every tax exemption voucher.

Every Caribbean booking reference billed to the commercial development fund."

"Give me forty minutes," Patrick whispered.

I lowered the phone and took a slow breath, feeling the ache in my abdomen from childbirth five days ago flare with dull, sharp heat.

Heavy footsteps echoed down the linoleum hallway.

Daniel appeared around the nurses' station, still wearing his wrinkled linen shirt, his sunburn glowing red beneath the sterile white lighting.

Vivian marched two paces behind him, her designer leather handbag tucked beneath her arm like a shield.

"Grace, step away from the window," Daniel pleaded, holding out his empty hands as if trying to soothe a cornered animal.

"The pediatric resident said we can both sit with him for twenty minutes if we scrub in.

Please, just talk to me."

"Don't beg, Daniel," Vivian cut in, her voice dripping with imperious disdain as she stopped beside the recovery bay.

"Grace knows very well that this family has private physicians on retainer.

If she had called my private line instead of causing a public scene with sirens on Beacon Hill, Noah would be in a private suite at Mount Auburn right now."

I turned my head slowly, looking past Daniel straight into Vivian’s calculating eyes.

"Your private line?"

I asked, pulling out my screen to display nineteen unanswered calls and three voicemail transcripts.

"Your son took my vehicle, locked my wallet in his luggage, and boarded a charter flight while Noah’s fever spiked to one hundred and four degrees.

If Mrs. Alvarez hadn't broken the back kitchen door to reach us, your grandson would be dead."

Vivian’s jaw hardened.

"Accidents happen during postpartum recovery.

You were hysterical.

Daniel made an executive decision to take a necessary client retreat with Miss Morgan."

"A client retreat?"

I asked, tapping the screen to bring up a newly decrypted PDF sent by Patrick Hayes.

"Then perhaps you can explain why Mercer Urban Development wired two hundred and eighty thousand dollars to a shell company registered in St. Lucia three hours before Daniel boarded that jet."