Victor Sloane did not answer Nina’s first call.
He did not answer the second.
By the third, his voicemail had been disabled.
Nina looked at her phone.
“That’s usually not encouraging.”
Daniel sat across from us at the lake-house table.
For the first time since the investigation began, he had been invited rather than compelled.
I hated how strange that felt.
“You said Northcrest introduced him.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“About ten months ago.”
“Before Redwood closed.”
“Yes.”
“What exactly did they say?”
Daniel rubbed his forehead.
“One of their partners said Victor was good at simplifying complicated ownership structures.”
“Simplifying.”
“I know.”
“Who was the partner?”
“Graham Vale.”
Nina searched.
A photograph appeared.
Mid-fifties.
Silver hair.
Managing partner at Northcrest Equity.
I had never met him.
“Did Graham know about my fifty-one percent?”
“Yes.”
“Your marriage?”
“Yes.”
“Redwood?”
“Yes.”
“Fairmont?”
Daniel hesitated.
“Not at first.”
“When did he learn?”
“Victor learned during diligence.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Daniel stared at the table.
“Graham knew before Northcrest advanced the twelve million.”
I felt my shoulders tighten.
“How much did he know?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try harder.”
Daniel exhaled.
“He knew there were environmental complications. He knew Redwood had been acquired outside Prescott’s normal structure. He knew Fairmont Environmental held settlement proceeds.”
“Did he know the settlement entity benefited Halcyon?”
Daniel looked genuinely confused.
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“I didn’t know.”
I believed him.
That did not absolve him.
It meant someone may have built a structure more complex than Daniel understood.
Nina drew another line on the wall chart.
Northcrest.
Victor.
Halcyon.
Fairmont Environmental.
“Why did Northcrest advance twelve million before closing?”
Daniel answered.
“To stabilize Redwood and clear transaction obstacles.”
“Meaning?”
“Pay down acquisition debt.”
“Which you did.”
“Yes.”
“Anything else?”
“Victor said we needed to clean up legacy liabilities.”
Nina stopped writing.
“Legacy liabilities.”
“Yes.”
“Fairmont.”
Daniel nodded slowly.
“That’s what I assumed.”
“Did he suggest Harrison Development?”
Daniel’s expression changed.
“No.”
“Who did?”
“My mother.”
I looked up.
“Patricia came up with Harrison?”
“She said Leonard wanted the land.”
“That part we know.”
“She wanted it resolved before the Northcrest sale.”
“And Victor?”
“He structured it.”
There.
“Victor knew Leonard.”
Daniel frowned.
“I don’t know.”
“Did they ever speak directly?”
“Yes.”
“How often?”
“A few times.”
“About what?”
“Land transfer documents.”
Nina leaned back.
“So Northcrest’s consultant directly coordinated with the blackmailer controlling historical Halcyon evidence.”
Daniel’s face tightened.
“When you say it like that—”
“There isn’t another way to say it.”
We called Mara Chen.
This time, I did not wait for formal scheduling.
Nina told her we had discovered Victor Sloane’s role in Fairmont Environmental and needed an immediate answer about his relationship with Northcrest.
Mara went silent.
Then she said, “I need twenty minutes.”
She called back in twelve.
Graham Vale joined.
His camera remained off.
Mara’s did not.
“Ms. Morgan,” Graham began, “I understand there are concerns regarding Mr. Sloane.”
“Concerns is becoming an overworked word.”
Mara’s expression barely changed.
Graham continued.
“Victor is an independent restructuring adviser.”
“Introduced by Northcrest.”
“Yes.”
“Paid by whom?”
“Initially by Prescott Logistics.”
“On your recommendation.”
“Yes.”
“Any prior work for Northcrest?”
“Several transactions.”
“Any prior work for Halcyon Materials?”
Silence.
Mara looked off-screen.
Graham answered.
“I don’t know.”
Nina spoke.
“We have a trust structure created by Sloane that lists Halcyon as beneficiary.”
Another silence.
This one was longer.
Mara’s face changed slightly.
“Send that document.”
“We already did.”
She began reading.
Graham said nothing.
I watched Mara.
Not because I trusted her.
Because lawyers often reveal more in what they stop doing than what they say.
She stopped taking notes.
Then she looked directly into the camera.
“Northcrest was not aware of this structure.”
“Was Graham?”
I asked.
He answered immediately.
“No.”
“Was anyone at Northcrest?”
“No.”
“That is broader than you can know this quickly.”
Mara glanced toward his blank screen.
Good.
Even she recognized it.
I continued.
“Who introduced Victor to Northcrest?”
Graham hesitated.
“A portfolio company.”
“Which one?”
“Monarch Chemical Transport.”
Nina’s fingers stopped over her keyboard.
She searched.
Monarch transported industrial materials.
One of its largest customers was Halcyon.
I stared at the screen.
“That’s not distant.”
Graham’s voice hardened.
“Plenty of logistics firms work with Halcyon.”
“Did Victor work on Monarch’s Halcyon contracts?”
“I don’t know.”
Mara intervened.
“We will conduct an internal review.”
Nina replied.
“Preserve all communications involving Victor Sloane, Graham Vale, Halcyon, Redwood, Fairmont, Harrison, Daniel Prescott, Andrew Bell, and Patricia Prescott.”
Graham said, “That is excessive.”
I leaned forward.
“Someone used my forged authorization in a transaction your firm was buying. Excessive ended several days ago.”
Mara nodded once.
“We will preserve.”
“Good.”
The call ended.
Daniel remained staring at the wall chart.
“What?”
He looked at me.
“Victor always knew which problem would scare me most.”
I felt something cold move through me.
“Explain.”
“When Redwood’s covenant tightened, he told me Morgan Property Holdings was the fastest collateral.”
“When Northcrest wanted cleaner ownership, he suggested the trust structure.”
“When Leonard threatened the records, Victor designed Fairmont Environmental and Harrison.”
“He solved every problem.”
“Yes.”
“By moving more control away from me.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
“Did that bother you?”
“At the time?”
“Yes.”
He looked ashamed.
“No.”
Of course not.
The structure gave Daniel what he wanted.
The fact that it also benefited someone else remained invisible because greed had made him cooperative.
“What did Victor ask for?”
“Fees.”
“How much?”
“High, but normal for transaction work.”
“Equity?”
“No.”
“Success payment?”
Daniel hesitated.
“There was a closing bonus.”
“How much?”
“One and a half million.”
I laughed softly.
“Normal.”
He ignored that.
Nina searched the engagement letter.
“Bonus paid by Prescott?”
“Northcrest, technically.”
She looked up.
“Victor had a personal financial incentive for the sale to close.”
“Yes.”
“And for Claire’s control to be removed.”
Daniel stared at the paper.
“Yes.”
The structure looked uglier by the hour.
Not because Daniel was innocent.
Because his misconduct had made him easy to steer.
Someone did not need to force him to forge my approval.
They only needed to present it as a shortcut to something he already wanted.
Nina’s investigator called.
She put him on speaker.
“We traced Sloane’s consulting entities.”
“How many?”
“Five relevant ones.”
“Halcyon?”
“Two payments over four years.”
Daniel looked up sharply.
“How much?”
“Total seven hundred eighty thousand.”
“For what?”
“Environmental restructuring and legacy liability consulting.”
The room went silent.
Victor had worked for Halcyon.
Directly.
“Dates?”
“One engagement started six months before Prescott acquired Redwood.”
I stared at Daniel.
His face had gone white.
“He knew.”
“Yes.”
“Before he met me?”
“Looks like it.”
“Before Northcrest introduced him?”
“Yes.”
Nina leaned forward.
“Any link to Fairmont specifically?”
“Invoice description references legacy transporter exposure.”
That was close enough to make my skin crawl.
Victor had advised Halcyon about the old Fairmont problem.
Then he advised Daniel on buying Redwood.
Then he helped structure an entity that quietly kept Halcyon tied to settlement funds.
Then he helped push the land toward Leonard.
Then he helped design a Northcrest sale that would remove my authority.
It no longer looked like independent events.
It looked like containment.
“Where is Victor now?”
“Unknown.”
“Travel?”
“We’re checking public records.”
Daniel stood.
“He’s running.”
Nina looked at him.
“Possibly.”
“No.”
Daniel shook his head.
“He knew this would surface.”
“How?”
“Because Northcrest closing stopped.”
“That doesn’t automatically expose Halcyon.”
“It exposes Fairmont Environmental.”
He looked at me.
“Victor knew if you ever regained access, you’d trace everything.”
I stared at him.
“You knew that too.”
“Yes.”
“Yet you still left the structures there.”
His laugh was bitter.
“I thought I’d close before you looked.”
The bluntness hurt less now.
Perhaps because I had heard worse.
Nina’s phone buzzed.
She read the message.
“Victor boarded a flight yesterday.”
“Where?”
“Zurich.”
Daniel swore.
“Can he be compelled back?”
“Depends what authorities eventually do.”
“We’re not there yet?”
“We’re getting there.”
My phone rang.
Evelyn.
I answered.
“I found something.”
“What?”
“My father’s old papers.”
My stomach tightened.
“What papers?”
“My mother kept a box after he died. Medical records. Employment documents. Letters.”
“Anything about Fairmont?”
“Yes.”
I stood.
“What?”
“A letter he wrote to someone at Halcyon.”
“When?”
“Three months after the exposure.”
“Did he send it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What does it say?”
Her voice changed.
“He says the dumping was ordered by Halcyon management.”
I looked at Nina.
“Names?”
“One.”
“Who?”
“Victor Sloane’s father.”
The room went completely still.
“What was his name?”
“Martin Sloane.”
Nina was already searching.
Martin Sloane had been Halcyon’s regional operations counsel thirty years earlier.
Victor had not stumbled onto Fairmont as a consultant.
His own family was connected to it.
Evelyn continued.
“There’s more.”
I closed my eyes.
“Tell me.”
“Samuel says Martin promised him medical coverage if he signed a statement saying his exposure happened outside work.”
“Did he sign?”
“No.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes.”
“My father wrote that Richard Prescott tried to help him.”
I looked at Richard’s empty chair in my memory.
“What did he do?”
“He gave Samuel copies of disposal tickets.”
That changed everything again.
Richard had admitted dumping.
He had admitted silence.
But apparently, at least once, he had tried to expose something.
“Does the letter say what happened to the copies?”
“No.”
“Could they be Leonard’s records?”
“Maybe.”
“Evelyn, I need you to bring that box to Nina.”
“I already called a lawyer.”
“Good.”
There was a long pause.
Then she asked, “Did my father die because of this?”
I could not give her certainty.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think they knew he was sick because of exposure?”
I looked at Daniel.
At Nina.
At the structure on the wall.
“Yes.”
The word hurt.
Evelyn was silent.
Then she said, “I want everything.”
“You’ll get everything we lawfully can give you.”
“No.”
Her voice hardened.
“I mean I want everything investigated.”
I understood.
“So do I.”
After the call, Daniel sat down again.
He looked defeated.
“I thought I was protecting Dad.”
I looked at him.
“You were protecting silence.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew enough before.”
“Yes.”
His eyes were red.
“What happens to him?”
“Richard?”
“Yes.”
“That depends on the truth.”
“He could be charged.”
“Possibly.”
“He could lose everything.”
“Possibly.”
Daniel looked at me.
“And you’re still going forward.”
“Yes.”
His face tightened.
“How can you be so certain?”
“Because certainty is not the same as comfort.”
He looked away.
I continued.
“Your family built this whole structure around one assumption.”
“What?”
“That if the consequences became painful enough, someone would hide the truth.”
I touched the documents.
“Richard hid dumping.”
“You hid records.”
“Patricia hid ownership schemes.”
“Andrew hid transactions.”
“Victor hid Halcyon.”
“And everyone assumed the next person would keep carrying it.”
Daniel stared at the table.
“I’m done carrying it.”
For the first time, he did not ask me to reconsider.
Nina’s laptop chimed.
An email had arrived from Mara Chen.
Subject: URGENT — NORTHCREST INTERNAL FINDINGS.
She opened it.
Her expression changed.
“What?”
She looked at me.
“Northcrest found internal messages between Graham Vale and Victor.”
Daniel stood.
“About what?”
Nina read silently.
Then aloud.
Need Prescott closed before Morgan reengages.
Second message:
Halcyon exposure stays buried if the structure holds.
Third:
D.P. will do what’s necessary if he thinks control is at risk.
No one spoke.
Daniel stared at the screen.
He had not merely been a collaborator.
He had been assessed.
Predicted.
Used.
Nina scrolled farther.
Then stopped.
“There’s one more.”
She looked at me.
“Graham wrote: If Prescott balks, remind him what happens to his father.”
Daniel’s face collapsed.
The threat he thought he was managing had been managed around him from the beginning.
Click here to continue reading: PART 15: Northcrest’s Internal Messages Showed Daniel Had Been Manipulated, but His Decision to Forge My Name Still Left One Question He Couldn’t Escape
At Our Anniversary Dinner, Daniel Raised His Glass and Turned Nine Years of Marriage Into a Joke Everyone Else Enjoyed
Part 14 of 28
