Chapter 8: What Grant Thought I Didn't Know
Carol read the text at six in the morning and called me at six-fifteen.
"He knows about Crain," she said.
"Which means someone in Crain's circle told them last night.
That's worth knowing."
"Does it change anything?"
"It tells us they're watching their allies.
It also tells us Grant is scared enough to reach out directly instead of going through his attorney, which is a mistake on his part." She paused.
"The line about Amanda — things that will come out — that's a threat dressed as a warning.
They're going to try to destroy her credibility before she can give a statement."
"What can they actually use?"
"Her mental health history, if there is one.
Any financial disputes.
The NDA, even though it's unenforceable — they'll wave it around and hope the noise is enough to make her hesitate." A beat.
"Has she given her formal statement yet?"
"She's meeting with you at eleven."
"Good.
Before they can move." Carol's voice shifted slightly — not softer, but more direct.
"Willa.
Grant's text said there are things about the folder you don't fully understand.
Do you have any idea what he means?"
I had been thinking about that since six o'clock.
"There's one thing," I said.
"In the financial records.
A series of transfers in 2018 — before I met Grant — going into an account I didn't recognize.
The amounts are large.
I assumed it was part of the trust restructuring Amanda mentioned.
But I don't actually know."
"Send me the page.
I'll have my financial investigator look at it today."
I photographed the page and sent it.
By nine o'clock I was at Carol's office.
Peter Crain arrived two minutes after me, in a suit and without his usual ease, and shook my hand with both of his.
"My wife sends her support," he said.
"Thank her for me."
Carol took his statement for forty-five minutes.
He was precise and unhurried.
He described Douglas's grip on my arm.
The exact words about my father's hands.
The moment Grant came over.
The instruction to apologize.
The sound of the sl@p.
"Did you observe the reaction of the crowd?" Carol asked.
"I did."
"How would you characterize it?"
Peter was quiet for a moment.
"There were people who laughed," he said.
"There were people who looked away.
There were people who looked sick." He paused.
"I was in the last group.
I wish I had been in a fourth group — the one that said something.
But I wasn't."
Carol nodded and wrote.
Amanda arrived at eleven wearing the same gray sweater, her folder tucked under her arm.
She sat across from Carol and answered every question in a voice that was quiet and completely steady.
She described the pregnancy.
The meeting with Douglas, which Grant attended.
The document.
The pressure.
The signing.
"Did Grant say anything during that meeting?" Carol asked.
"He said it was the right decision for the family."
"Did he say anything to you directly?
To you personally?"
Amanda looked at her hands.
"He said he was sorry.
But that his father was right." She looked up.
"That was the last thing he said to me before I signed."
The room was very quiet.
"And the officer," Carol said.
"Walk me through that day."
Amanda did.
The police station on Belmont.
The desk officer who took her information.
The wait.
The phone call she overheard — not on speaker, but through a door that wasn't fully closed — the officer's voice saying *Douglas, she just left, you'll want to know.* The way she sat in her car in the parking lot for twenty minutes before she could drive.
"I recorded it on my phone," she said.
"I had started recording everything by then.
I didn't know if it would ever matter.
I just — I needed there to be a record.
Somewhere.
That it happened."
Carol set down her pen.
"Amanda.
I want to ask you something directly.
Grant's attorney is going to argue that you and Willa coordinated this.
That you planned it together before the anniversary party."
"I had never spoken to Willa before last night," Amanda said.
"I know.
But they'll argue it anyway.
Are you prepared for that?"
"Yes."
"They'll go after your history.
Anything they can find."
"I know." Amanda's hands were still in her lap.
"I've been waiting for this for three years.
I'm not going to be frightened out of it now."
Carol looked at her for a moment.
"All right," she said.
"Then let's talk about James Whitfield."
The retired officer had submitted his written statement by email at eight that morning — three pages, single-spaced, signed and notarized.
Carol printed it and slid it across the desk to Amanda.
Amanda read the first paragraph and pressed her lips together.
"He remembered," she said quietly.
"He remembered everything," Carol said.
"And he named Douglas directly."
My phone buzzed on the table.
A call from a number I didn't know.
I looked at Carol.
She nodded.
I answered.
"Ms.
Reyes." A man's voice.
Smooth, careful, professional.
"My name is Richard Ames.
I represent Grant Hale.
I'd like to speak with you briefly, without attorneys present, as a courtesy."
"My attorney is present," I said.
"You're on speaker."
A pause.
"Ms.
Reyes.
My client asked me to convey that he is prepared to make this process as straightforward as possible.
He is willing to release all claims on the gallery accounts immediately, in exchange for a mutual agreement to limit the scope of the proceedings."
"Limit the scope," I said.
"You mean drop the domestic violence filing."
"And the matter relating to Ms.
— to the prior Mrs.
Hale."
Carol was already writing.
"Mr.
Ames," I said.
"My client is not interested in limiting the scope of anything.
If your client wants to discuss terms, his attorney can contact mine in writing."
"Ms.
Reyes—"
"We're done with this call." I ended it.
Carol looked up from her notepad.
"They're trying to contain it," she said.
"I know."
"Which means they're more afraid of the Amanda filing than the domestic violence filing." She tapped her pen on the desk.
"The financial records.
Whatever is in those 2018 transfers — that's what Grant meant last night.
That's what they're most afraid of."
She looked at me steadily.
"My investigator called twenty minutes ago," she said.
"The account those transfers went into belongs to a shell company.
The shell company was dissolved in 2019.
But before it was dissolved, it made two payments." She paused.
"One to the notary.
Gerald Fitch."
The room went still.
"And the second?" I said.
"To a private consulting firm that specializes in — " she checked her notes — " 'family transition management.' " She looked up.
"Which is a phrase that, in the three cases my investigator found it used, referred to pressuring unwanted spouses or partners to sign documents and exit quietly."
I thought about Amanda in my father's waiting room.
Holding a folder in her lap.
Alone.
"They paid someone to manage her," I said.
"And paid the notary to make the NDA look valid," Carol said.
"Which means this isn't just a domestic matter anymore." She set down her pen.
"This is fraud.
Potentially conspiracy.
And the state's attorney's office is going to want to know about it."
She looked at Amanda.
Then at me.
"Are you both still ready to move forward?"
Amanda answered first.
"Yes," she said.
Without hesitation.
I looked at the folder on Carol's desk.
At Amanda's steady hands.
May you like
At the morning light coming through the window on the fourteenth floor, the city going about its business below, indifferent and ordinary and completely unaware of what was being built in this room.
"Yes," I said.
