Chapter 8: Claire Makes One Last Move
Maya had expected Claire to go quiet.
That would have been the smart play — stay close to her father, say nothing, let the lawyers handle it.
Claire Whitmore had never been good at the smart play.
The call came at seven-fifteen the following morning.
Maya was at her father's house, two hours of sleep behind her, a cup of coffee going cold on the kitchen table.
She looked at the number.
Unknown.
She answered anyway.
"I need to talk to you." Claire's voice was stripped of everything that had been in it on the rooftop.
No performance.
No edge.
Just a woman who had not slept either.
"Not through lawyers.
Just us."
"Say what you need to say," Maya said.
"Not on the phone.
In person."
"No."
A pause.
"Maya.
Please."
Maya looked at her coffee.
"You have five minutes.
On the phone.
Starting now."
Claire was quiet for a moment.
When she spoke again, the words came out carefully, like she was reading from something she'd written down.
"I didn't know about the pension fund.
I want you to know that.
My father — I knew he ran things a certain way.
I knew there were arrangements I wasn't supposed to ask about.
But the retirees, the fund — I didn't know."
"That may be true," Maya said.
"It doesn't change what was found."
"I know." Another pause.
"I know what I did to you at the party was—" She stopped.
"I do that.
I've always done that.
Made myself bigger by making other people smaller.
I don't know how to—" She stopped again.
Maya waited.
"I'm going to cooperate," Claire said.
"Fully.
Whatever the lawyers say, I'm going to tell them everything I know about Northgate and Marsh and the CFO.
All of it."
"That's between you and the investigators," Maya said.
"I know.
I just—" Claire's voice broke slightly.
Recovered.
"I wanted you to hear it from me first.
Not because it fixes anything.
It doesn't.
I just wanted you to know."
Maya was quiet for a long moment.
"Claire," she said finally.
"Four thousand three hundred people were depending on that fund.
Some of them are already retired.
Some of them have nothing else." She paused.
"If you cooperate fully, that matters.
Not to me personally.
But it matters."
The line was quiet.
"Okay," Claire said.
"Okay."
She ended the call.
Maya set her phone down.
Picked up her coffee.
It was cold.
She drank it anyway.
Her father appeared in the kitchen doorway.
He looked at her face.
"Claire?" he said.
"She's going to cooperate."
Thomas Reed was quiet for a moment.
Then he pulled out the chair across from her and sat down.
"How are you?" he said.
Not the question he asked in boardrooms.
The other one.
Maya looked at her father — the man who had trusted her enough to let her go in alone, who had waited, who had not called once during eleven weeks to check if she was managing.
"I'm okay," she said.
"I think I'm actually okay."
He reached across the table and put his hand over hers.
May you like
He didn't say anything else.
He didn't need to.
