Chapter 7: What Priscilla Did Next
Desmond Calloway's house was forty minutes from the city — a wide stone property set back from a country road, surrounded by oak trees that had been there longer than any of the buildings nearby.
Nadia had visited it exactly twice since the wedding.
Both times at Christmas.
Both times with Weston.
She arrived alone, a single bag in the back of a car she had called herself.
Her father met her at the door.
He did not say anything about the bag, or about the fact that she had come without calling first.
He simply held the door open and said, "There's tea."
She sat at the kitchen table — a different kitchen, a different table, but the same gesture of sitting down and trying to locate herself.
"Priscilla called you," she said.
He set a cup in front of her.
"Forty minutes ago."
"What did she say?"
"She said that you were being irrational.
That the account was a legal structure that had been misrepresented to me.
That if I proceeded with any action against the family, she would make certain information public."
Nadia looked up.
"What information?"
"She didn't specify.
That's the nature of that kind of threat — it works better when it's vague."
"Are you worried?"
"No." He sat down across from her.
"There is nothing she can make public that I haven't already made peace with.
But I want you to know she made the call, and what she said."
"She's escalating."
"Yes."
"Because she's frightened."
"Yes."
Nadia wrapped both hands around the cup.
"Dad.
The document you put on the table last night.
Where did you get it?"
"A former employee of the Ashgrove family's accounting firm.
He left their service eight months ago under circumstances that were not pleasant for him.
He came to me."
"You have a source inside their finances."
"I had a source.
He has since been formally engaged as a consultant to the Calloway Group's legal team."
"So he's protected."
"Completely."
Nadia was quiet for a moment.
"Is there more?
Beyond the account?"
Desmond looked at her steadily.
"Yes."
"How much more?"
"Enough that Priscilla's phone call this morning was not a threat.
It was a panic."
She set her cup down.
"Show me."
He went to the study and came back with a folder.
He set it on the table and opened it himself, turning the pages toward her one at a time, watching her face as she read.
The Isle of Man account was the smallest item.
There were three additional accounts — two in Luxembourg, one in Singapore.
There were transfers dated over a four-year period, beginning two years before Nadia had ever met Weston.
There was a series of invoices from a shell company that did not appear to provide any actual service.
And there was a single email, printed and signed at the bottom by the accounting consultant, in which Priscilla wrote to a colleague: *If the old man ever connects the Kingsley deed to the foundation accounts, we move everything to the Singapore structure and let Weston take the exposure.*
Weston take the exposure.
Nadia read that line twice.
"She was planning to let Weston be blamed," she said.
"If it came to that."
"Her own brother."
"Yes."
Nadia closed the folder.
She looked at the oak trees through the kitchen window.
They were very still in the morning air.
"I want to speak to your legal team," she said.
"They're expecting your call."
"Today."
"I told them to keep the morning free."
She looked at him.
"You were very certain I would come."
"No," he said.
"I was certain that if you came, you would want to move quickly.
I prepared for that possibility."
She almost smiled.
It didn't quite arrive.
"There's one more thing," Desmond said.
He reached into the folder and removed a single photograph.
He placed it on the table.
It was a picture taken at a restaurant.
Priscilla, seated across from a man Nadia did not recognize.
Between them on the table: a manila envelope, partially open.
"Three weeks ago," Desmond said.
"The man across from her is a journalist.
He covers financial crime for a national paper."
Nadia stared at the photograph.
"She was going to go to the press," she said.
"She was exploring the option.
Whether she intended to use it against me, or against Weston, or simply as leverage — I don't know yet."
Nadia picked up the photograph.
The manila envelope in the picture was partially open.
She could see the edge of a document inside it.
She could not read what it said.
But she recognized the paper stock.
It was the same paper as the document her father had placed on the table in the private room the night before.
"Dad," she said slowly.
"Did Priscilla have a copy of the Isle of Man account document before last night?"
May you like
Desmond's expression did not change.
"That," he said, "is the right question."
