Chapter 6: The Message and the Woman Who Sent It
I called my father at seven fifteen.
He answered on the first ring, which meant he'd been awake for a while.
"Did you sleep?" he asked.
"Some.
Dad, someone sent me a message last night.
After midnight.
They said there's more to this than Daniel told me."
A pause.
"What number?"
I read it to him.
Another pause, longer this time.
"That," he said carefully, "is the number for Carol Simms.
She's been the Harrington Group's internal accountant for eleven years."
I sat up straighter.
"She reached out to me directly."
"Yes."
"Why would she do that?"
"I think," Dad said, "that you should meet with her before you decide anything about Daniel.
Before I make any decision about the financing.
Can you do that today?"
I looked at the time.
Emma would be up in forty minutes.
Daniel was still in the house.
"I can make it work.
Do you know what she wants to say?"
"I have a suspicion," he said.
"But I'd rather you hear it from her directly."
He gave me a number to call, and an address.
A coffee shop in Evanston, away from Lake Forest, away from anyone likely to recognize either of us.
I wrote it down on the notepad by the bed.
"Dad," I said.
"How bad is it?"
"I don't know yet," he said.
"That's what I need you to find out for me."
I met Carol Simms at nine thirty.
She was in her early fifties, small and precise-looking, with reading glasses on a chain and a coffee she'd clearly been holding for some time without drinking.
She stood when she saw me come through the door.
She recognized me from somewhere — probably photographs.
"Mrs.
Harrington," she said.
"Thank you for coming."
"Sarah, please." I sat down across from her.
"You reached out last night.
I'm here."
She wrapped both hands around her cup.
"I want you to understand that I've worked for the Harrington Group since Linda's husband was alive.
I'm not doing this to cause harm.
I'm doing this because what Linda has done goes beyond a family disagreement."
"Tell me."
She took a breath.
"The Bennett Capital financing agreement — the one Daniel mentioned last night — it isn't the only relationship Linda has with your father's firm.
Eighteen months ago, she began routing certain internal transfers through a shell account that she set up using a variation of Bennett Capital's registered name.
Not your father's company.
A separate entity designed to look associated with it."
I stared at her.
"What does that mean?"
"It means that when clients or partners of the Harrington Group asked about their major financial backer, they were shown documentation suggesting a deeper, more formal relationship with Bennett Capital than actually existed.
Linda used your father's name — his firm's reputation — to secure additional commitments from investors who believed they were essentially investing alongside Richard Bennett."
The coffee shop noise continued around us.
Someone laughed at another table.
The espresso machine ran.
"That's fraud," I said.
Carol nodded once.
"I've been documenting it for seven months.
I didn't know who to go to.
Going to Linda wasn't possible.
Going to Daniel felt — I wasn't sure whose side he was on."
"What changed last night?"
"I was at the dinner," she said quietly.
"I was one of the fourteen people at that table."
I hadn't recognized her.
She'd been seated at the far end, near Linda's older relatives.
I'd never been properly introduced.
"I watched what she did to you," Carol said.
"And I watched Daniel say what he said.
And I thought — if this is how she treats her own family when she believes she has all the power, then there is no version of this where she stops."
She reached into her bag and placed a manila folder on the table between us.
"These are copies," she said.
"Your father's legal team will want the originals, which I have secured outside the office."
My hands went to the folder and then stopped.
"Carol," I said.
"If you give this to me, your employment is over."
"My employment," she said, "has been making me complicit in a crjme for seven months.
I'd like to sl**p again."
I picked up the folder.
I opened it.
The first page was a registration document for a company called Bennett Capital Advisory Group, LLC.
Registered fourteen months ago.
Linda Harrington listed as sole director.
My father's name was nowhere on the document.
But his logo was on the letterhead of every investor communication attached behind it.
I sat very still for a moment.
Then I called my father back.
May you like
"Dad," I said.
"You need to see something."
