Chapter 9: The Longest Con
I didn't cry.
I had expected to — had braced for it, the way you brace for a wave you can see coming.
But it didn't arrive.
What came instead was something quieter and much colder.
I sat at my father's desk and I thought about the night Marcus and I met.
A charity gala.
He'd been seated two chairs away.
He'd leaned across the empty seat between us and asked if I knew anything about the artist whose work was hanging on the far wall.
I had.
I'd talked about her for ten minutes.
He'd listened like I was the most interesting person in the room.
I had thought it was luck.
"Tell me what you know," I said to Mr.
Hargrove.
"I want to be careful here," he said.
"What I'm about to tell you is based on what we've been able to establish in the last hour.
It may be incomplete."
"Tell me anyway."
He took a breath.
"Six years ago, your father was approached by a private investment group about a potential acquisition of Voss Holdings.
He declined.
The approach was made through an intermediary — a consultant.
That consultant was Marcus."
I said nothing.
"Your father declined the acquisition and, as far as we can tell, thought nothing more of it.
He didn't know Marcus's name.
Marcus was one of several people involved in putting together the offer.
But Marcus knew your father's name.
He knew the company.
He knew the family."
"And then two years later," I said, "he found me."
"At an event your father's foundation sponsored," Mr.
Hargrove said.
"Yes."
"He researched me."
"Almost certainly."
"He knew who I was before he ever spoke to me."
"Yes."
I looked at the wedding photograph on the bookshelf.
Marcus in his morning suit, his hand at the small of my back, smiling at the camera.
I had loved that photograph.
I had looked at it a hundred times and felt nothing but warmth.
"He married me to get to the company," I said.
"That may have been the original intention," Mr.
Hargrove said carefully.
"What he felt for you personally — I can't speak to that.
People are complicated.
But the initial approach was not accidental."
"And my father," I said.
"Did he know?
At the end?"
A long pause.
"The Reno facility," Mr.
Hargrove said.
"We've confirmed what was filed there.
It was an amendment to a private letter of instruction attached to the trust.
Filed eight months before your father died."
"What did it say?"
"It said: *If Marcus Voss ever activates a legal claim against the trust or against Elena, deliver the enclosed documentation to Mr.
Hargrove immediately.
Edmund knew, Elena.
He found out approximately two years before he died.
He chose not to tell you because you were happy, and because he had already made the trust impenetrable.
He believed — correctly — that Marcus could never actually take anything.
He wanted to protect you from the pain of knowing."*
I pressed my hand flat against the desk.
My father had known.
He had sat across from Marcus at Christmas dinners and birthday lunches and the celebration when Eleanor's pregnancy was confirmed, and he had known, and he had said nothing, and he had spent the last two years of his life making absolutely certain that when this day came, I would be safe.
"He protected me," I said.
"He did," Mr.
Hargrove said.
"Completely."
"He should have told me."
"Yes," the lawyer said.
"He probably should have."
I sat with that for a moment.
The grief of it — not just Marcus, but my father's silence, his choice to carry it alone, his belief that shielding me was the same as helping me.
"What's in the enclosed documentation?" I asked.
"Records of the original acquisition approach.
Emails between Marcus and the investment group.
A private investigator's report your father commissioned two years ago, documenting Marcus's financial history, his previous relationships, and two prior attempts to marry into wealth — both of which ended when the women discovered what he was doing."
Two other women.
"He's done this before," I said.
"He's attempted it before.
You're the first one he actually married."
"Because I was the most valuable target."
"Because you were the most careful," Mr.
Hargrove said.
"The other women caught him earlier.
You caught him too — you just caught him after he'd already signed the documents that made him irrelevant."
I almost laughed.
It came out wrong.
"Ms.
Poole," I said.
"The journalist.
She sent me that photograph thinking it would destabilize me.
She doesn't know that I now have everything."
"She does not know that," Mr.
Hargrove confirmed.
"Then let's make sure the next move is mine," I said.
"I want to meet with you tomorrow.
In person.
Bring everything from the Reno filing.
And I want to know if what Marcus did — the deliberate approach, the marriage under false pretenses — rises to anything actionable."
"I believe it does," he said.
"Significantly."
"Good," I said.
I looked at Eleanor sleeping in the bassinet.
Her fist had uncurled.
Her face was completely peaceful.
"One more thing," I said.
"Diane.
His mother.
She called your office this morning asking about the trust."
"Yes."
"How much did she know?
About what Marcus was doing when he married me?"
The pause was answer enough.
"She introduced him to the investment group," Mr.
Hargrove said quietly.
"Six years ago.
The original acquisition approach — she made the connection."
I closed my eyes.
"She's not just his mother," I said.
"She's his partner."
"She was," Mr.
Hargrove said.
"Past tense, I think.
Now that the plan has failed, I suspect she is primarily interested in her own exposure."
"Then she's going to do something," I said.
"Soon."
May you like
"Yes," he said.
"I think she is."
