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“That doesn’t sound terrible.”
“With Darlene.”
Hanna grimaced, a full-body wince just at the thought. “We’ll go out and have a nice time. You don’t have to do that. Ever. Doesn’t that violate the Geneva Conventions?”
“No, because this is not wartime.” Vivian patted her hand. “Push me over to my desk, dear, then go invite Gregory out for lunch. I have some business calls I need to attend to.”
“Certainly.” Hanna took hold of the wheelchair handles to navigate her new friend across the room.After last night, I’m not sure it isn’t wartime after all.
* * *
“I hadno idea so many people held shares of the company,” Gregory said as he stared at the list on the screen.
An impressive number of names written in a type size small enough to cause eyestrain in ants marched down the document Martin had sent him. A complete list of shareholders, from those with just a handful of stocks to those who held large stakes in the company. Several of those names jumped out at Gregory as celebrities, famous athletes, and musicians.
Martin leaned back in the chair beside the desk, a notebook in his lap. “It’s an old company. Plenty of fingers have ended up in this pie over the years. Most of those names don’t matter for your purposes. The top, say, twenty-five? Those do. Especially the one at the top.”
“Dean Bennet. Majority holder?”
“By a clear margin. That’s the man you need to win over if you’re going to oust your board of directors.” Martin flipped a page in his notebook. “Dean Bennet is not a young man. In fact, he doesn’t really do his own business anymore. He leaves it to a representative. I did a little digging, and there’s rumors he’s going to turn over those stocks to said representative in the next year or so.”
“So I’ll need to talk to his representative, and winhimover.”
“Right. I’ve put in with his assistant to set up a call for you, but the man is currently on vacation. Expect it to take a few days.”
“As long as it’s not more than that. I want to–” Gregory’s private line rang. The screen readRobert Lane.He held up a hand to let Martin know he needed to take the call. “Robert. You’re conscious. Jetlag easing up?”
“I don’t think so. Now I’m sleeping, but I’m having those dreams where you feel so busy, you wake up exhausted and worried. Got a minute?”Robert sounded tense.
Gregory shot Martin an exasperated look.Fucking Robert, he mouthed to his friend.
Martin rolled his eyes.I’ll talk to you later,he mouthed, and took the hint to disappear.
“Sure, Robert. Go ahead. What’s on your mind?” Gregory asked, though he thought he might have an idea already.
Robert’s next words confirmed it.“That talk we had the other night. About those payments your grandfather made. You know, they must have been important to him if he set them up to continue after he died.”
Gregory flattened his lips.Except he didn’t. You did. Why are you lying to me?“Must have been. We’ll know more about them when you get a chance to look into them. No hurry. I know you’re on vacation.”
“Yes. It’s just that the more I think about it, the more I worry about them. We’re rocking a boat we don’t understand, and I don’t want to drown because we did.”Robert tried to sound casual. Gregory had heard that tone before, when Robert didn’t want a person to realize how concerned he really was.
“That’s the purpose of you looking into this, isn’t it? Us understanding the boat we’re in?”
“It is. Yes.”
“Then what’s the problem? We’ll look into it, we’ll evaluate, and we’ll go from there,” Gregory said.Yes, Robert. Why don’t you tell me what the problem is.
A pause on the line, then,“Look. This is going to sound a little crazy.”
It already does.“You’re fine, Robert. Go ahead.”
“I woke up last night with a bad feeling that you were going to ignore this. That you wouldn’t make these payments, and bad shit was going to come out of nowhere and blindside us.”The words came out in a rush, a convincing yet false attempt to sound as though Robert were admitting an important yet shameful fact.
Gregory put on his most disappointed-father tone. “Robert. I told you I would take care of it, didn’t I?”
“And did you?”
“It sounds like you don’t trust me. Is that true?”
