Chapter 4: Margaret Makes a Call
The champagne had gone flat.
Ethan was on his third call in twenty minutes, pacing the length of the sitting room while Brooke sat very still on the sofa and Margaret stood at the window watching the storm.
"They're saying the draw won't fund Monday," Ethan said, phone pressed to his ear.
"I understand that.
What I need to know is whether we can get a bridge from—" He stopped.
Listened.
"What do you mean they already called you?"
He lowered the phone.
Margaret turned from the window.
"Who already called them?"
"Whitmore Global's legal team." Ethan's voice had gone flat in a way Margaret had not heard before.
"They contacted our secondary lender tonight.
As a courtesy notification.
To let them know Whitmore was withdrawing and that any bridge facility they were considering would be — her words — inadvisable."
Brooke stood up slowly.
"They called our secondary lender."
"At midnight."
"That's not a withdrawal," Brooke said.
"That's a wall."
Margaret moved to the coffee table.
She picked up the divorce folder.
Opened it.
Read the first page, then the second, then stopped at the third.
Her face changed.
"Ethan."
He looked over.
She held up the folder.
"Who reviewed this agreement before tonight?"
"Caldwell's team.
Why?"
"Because paragraph fourteen—" She stopped.
Read it again.
Her lips pressed together until they went white.
"Your attorney put a voidability clause in the divorce agreement."
Ethan crossed the room.
He read the paragraph.
He sat down on the arm of the sofa.
"She can void it," he said.
"If she chooses."
Brooke looked between them.
"What does that mean exactly?"
"It means," Margaret said, her voice very controlled, "that if Claire elects to void this agreement, every claim she waived tonight — against Ethan, against Harrington Development, against the marital estate — comes back."
"Can she do that?"
"Apparently my son's attorney made certain she could." Margaret set the folder down with a precision that was more frightening than throwing it.
"Call Caldwell.
Now.
Tonight."
Ethan was already dialing.
Margaret walked to the window again.
Brooke came to stand beside her.
"Is this bad?"
Margaret didn't answer immediately.
Outside, the storm was still moving.
The driveway was empty.
The stone steps where Claire had removed her heels were slick and dark.
"She had a driver waiting," Margaret said quietly.
"Not a rideshare.
A driver.
In a suit."
"So?"
"So nobody calls a car like that for a woman going home to a burned grilled cheese." Margaret's jaw tightened.
"We made an assumption tonight.
A significant one."
"What assumption?"
Margaret turned from the window.
"That we knew who she was."
Ethan came back into the room.
His face was the color of old paper.
"Caldwell's not answering."
"Keep trying."
"Mother." He stopped in the middle of the room.
"Whitmore Global.
The company that holds our financing.
Whitmore." He said the name again as though testing its weight.
"Claire's last name before we married was Whitmore."
The room went quiet.
Brooke looked at Margaret.
Margaret looked at the divorce folder on the coffee table.
At Claire's wedding ring sitting on top of the signed papers.
At the platinum band that had been placed there without trembling, without begging, without a single word of threat.
"Call your father's attorney," Margaret said.
"Not Caldwell.
Harrison.
And tell him we need him here before seven a.m."
"What do I tell him it's about?"
Margaret picked up her champagne glass.
May you like
Set it back down without drinking.
"Tell him we may have made a very expensive mistake."
