Chapter 64: Opposing Counsel

Lucas did not answer Elena Garrity right away.

Traffic kept moving past the crosswalk. A delivery truck hissed its brakes at the corner. He kept the phone to his ear and let the silence sit where she had left it.

"Mr. Vintage?" Elena said. Still polite. Still unhurried. "I asked a simple question."

"I work for Vertex Management," Lucas said.

"Do you?" Elena replied. He heard paper shift on her end, the soft scrape of something sliding across a desk. "My understanding is that your badge was suspended last night. That makes your employment status... provisional. And yet you spent this morning in a basement annex with Assistant State Prosecutor Miller, with David Reed at your elbow."

Lucas kept his face still. She had the timeline. She had the names. Someone in Wilmington was still getting updates in real time.

"If you already know where I was," Lucas said, "you don’t need me to narrate it."

Elena made a small sound that might have been a smile. "I am not asking for a narration. I am asking for a map. Nathan Cole reported to Richard Sterling. Cole is currently silent in a holding cell. The shell companies my firm incorporated are now on the front page of three trade papers. That leaves a gap in the structure, and gaps make my client restless."

"Your client funded a two-year sabotage operation against his ex-wife’s company," Lucas said. "Restless is the wrong word."

"Allegations are not findings," Elena said. Her voice cooled a degree. "Richard Sterling is a private citizen with a clean record and legitimate Delaware holdings. What Cole did with those holdings is a matter for the state. What you did with page forty-seven is also a matter for the state. I am trying to determine whether you are a cooperating witness, a Vertex operative, or something less official."

"I told you who I work for."

"You told me a company name," Elena said. "Companies do not walk into prosecutor annexes. People do. People with agendas. People with... leverage."

Lucas watched the crosswalk signal cycle back to red.

"If Richard wants to talk about the Delaware filings," Lucas said, "he can talk to the detective who has the wire receipt. Or he can talk to Reed. He does not get to talk to me through you."

"Direct," Elena said. "I appreciate that. Most attachés waste the first three minutes pretending they don’t understand the call."

"I understand the call," Lucas said. "You’re fishing. You’re trying to find out if I sit with Victoria Sterling, Camilla Verman, or the state. The answer is not going to come from me over an open line."

"Then let me be equally direct," Elena said. "I will be in the city this afternoon. Richard has asked me to open a channel with Vertex’s counsel before the freeze orders land. I would prefer that channel to be civil. If you intend to make yourself a permanent fixture in this litigation, I would prefer to know what you actually are before I sit across from Victoria’s lawyers."

"Talk to Reed," Lucas said. "Any further questions go through him."

"I already have his number," Elena said. "I called you first because you are the variable no one planned for. Cole did not mention you. Mads did not mention you until the Dover interview. And yet every fracture in this case seems to run through a junior consultant with a suspended badge."

She paused.

"One last thing, Mr. Vintage. Richard Sterling does not lose quietly. If you are standing between him and Victoria out of loyalty, that is your choice. If you are standing there because someone is paying you to, I would like a price. Either way, we will speak again."

The line went dead.

Lucas lowered the phone. His hand was steady. The rest of him was not as calm as he wanted it to be.

He dialed David Reed before he took another step.

Reed picked up on the second ring.

"Vintage."

"Elena Garrity just called my personal phone," Lucas said. He kept walking, turning off the main avenue onto a quieter side street. "She knew I was with Miller this morning. She knew about the badge suspension. She asked who I work for. She says she’s coming into the city this afternoon to open a channel with Vertex counsel on Richard Sterling’s behalf."

Reed was quiet for three full seconds.

"Where are you?" Reed asked.

"Three blocks from the annex. Walking."

"Do not call her back. Do not text her. Do not answer if that Delaware number rings again. Forward the call log to my office the moment you hang up with me. Did you give her anything?"

"I said I work for Vertex. I told her questions go through you. That was all."

"Good," Reed said. "Elena Garrity does not make courtesy calls. If she is flying in today, Richard knows the freeze is coming and he wants a negotiating position before the accounts lock. Vertex needs to hear that from you in a formal setting, not from a rumor."

"I already emailed the acting general counsel," Lucas said. "I asked for a briefing with Victoria today. New information on the Delaware funding."

"Then sit on that request until it lands," Reed said. "When it does, I want to be on the call or in the room. Elena will try to peel Victoria away from her own counsel with nostalgia and shared history. Do not let that happen without a record."

"Understood."

"And Lucas," Reed added. "Camilla paid my retainer. That does not make her your handler. If Elena starts dropping Camilla’s name to muddy the water, you shut your mouth and look at me. Clear?"

"Clear."

Lucas hung up, forwarded the call log from his phone, and kept walking.

His email pinged before he reached the next corner.

The acting general counsel had replied.

Briefing confirmed. 2:00 PM, Conference Room 2B, second floor. Ms. Sterling will attend. Your counsel may join by phone. Security will escort you from the lobby. Do not attempt to use your suspended badge.

Lucas checked the time. He had a little under four hours.

He typed a short message to Camilla. He kept it factual. No apology. She had already heard enough of those.

Richard Sterling funded Pell and Garrity’s retainer for the Delaware shells. Detectives confirmed this morning. Elena Garrity called me ten minutes ago. Reed has the details. You should hear it from me before you hear it from a paper.

He sent it and put the phone away.

Camilla did not reply immediately. He did not expect her to. Wary allies read first and answered later.

He spent the next three hours in a public library two blocks from Vertex. The building smelled of old carpet and toner. He took a carrel on the second floor, bought a yellow legal pad from the gift shop downstairs the way Reed had told him to, and wrote the Elena call down as close to word-for-word as he could manage.

He wrote the detective’s description of the private trust on a separate page. He did not write speculation. He did not write what he thought Victoria would do when she heard the name. When he finished, he photographed both pages under the carrel lamp and emailed them to Reed from his phone.

A librarian wheeled a cart past his aisle twice. Neither time did he look up for long. He checked his email once an hour. Camilla still had not answered. Victoria had not written. Reed sent a one-line acknowledgment of the notes and nothing else.

At one forty-five he packed the pad into the inside pocket of his jacket and walked to the Vertex lobby.

The guards at the desk looked at him the way guards look at a problem with a name badge they are not allowed to honor. One of them made a call. Two minutes later a security escort appeared, a young man Lucas did not recognize, and walked him to the second-floor conference room without conversation.

Conference Room 2B had frosted glass, a long table, and no windows onto the street. The acting general counsel was already seated at the far end with a laptop open and a stack of folders. Victoria Sterling sat to his right.

She did not stand when Lucas entered.

She wore a dark charcoal suit and no jewelry except a thin silver watch. Her expression was the one she used in boardrooms when someone was about to lose a division.

"Sit," Victoria said.

Lucas sat. The escort closed the door and stayed outside.

The acting GC connected Reed on speaker. Reed’s dry voice filled the room with a brief identification for the record. Victoria nodded once. The GC started a digital recorder and stated the date, time, and attendees.

"Mr. Vintage requested this briefing," the GC said. "He indicated new information regarding the origin of the Delaware funding. Mr. Vintage, proceed."

Lucas kept his hands flat on the table.

"Last night the lead state detective called me," Lucas said. "Mads produced a wire receipt from two years ago in exchange for a lighter sentence. The retainer that paid Pell and Garrity to incorporate Harlan, Brennan, and Northshore did not come from Nathan Cole. It came from a private trust owned by Richard Sterling."

Victoria did not blink.

The GC stopped typing.

"Confirm the source," Victoria said. Her voice was level. Too level.

"The detective showed me a copy of the receipt this morning outside the prosecutor’s annex," Lucas said. "He identified Richard as your ex-husband. Divorced four years ago. Spotless public record. Board seats at three local charities. The detective said they are moving to freeze Richard’s accounts and bring him in. He also said a man with Richard’s resources does not usually wait for a knock."

Victoria looked at the recorder, then at the GC, then back at Lucas.

"Continue," she said.

"Forty minutes ago Elena Garrity called my personal phone from a Delaware number," Lucas said. "Senior partner at Pell and Garrity. She said Richard Sterling is her client. She said Cole worked for him. She knew I had been with Miller this morning. She knew my badge was suspended. She asked who I work for. She said she is coming into the city this afternoon to open a channel with Vertex counsel before freeze orders land. Reed has the call log and my written notes."

"I confirm receipt," Reed said from the speaker. "Ms. Garrity has not yet contacted my office. When she does, I will not take the call alone."

Victoria’s jaw had gone tight. She stared at a fixed point on the table for a long moment.

"Richard funded Cole," she said.

It was not a question.

"That is what the receipt shows," Lucas said.

Victoria leaned back in her chair. For a second the boardroom mask slipped and he saw the woman who had told him, in a riverside apartment, that she had not let anyone through that door in four years.

"Two years," Victoria said quietly. "He sat on charity boards and wrote checks and built shell companies to hollow out my firm from the inside. For two years. While I was hiring people he had already bought."

No one spoke.

"Cole interviewed with us eighteen months ago," she said to the GC without looking at him. "Pull the referral chain. I want to know who walked him through the door."

"Yes, Ms. Sterling."

Victoria looked up at Lucas. Her eyes were hard, but they were clear.

"I want every Vertex account with any Delaware exposure audited by close of business," she told the GC. "I want a litigation hold on every file that touched Harlan, Brennan, or Northshore. I want our outside counsel on a joint call with Reed before Elena Garrity sets foot in this building. And I want a security review of every vendor Cole approved in the last twenty-four months."

"Yes, Ms. Sterling."

"Mr. Reed," Victoria said toward the speaker. "Elena will try to frame this as a marital dispute that spilled into commerce. Do not let her. This is a funded conspiracy against a publicly reporting company."

"I do not do framing," Reed said. "I do records."

Victoria turned back to Lucas.

"You were right to put this in a briefing," she said. There was no warmth in it. There was something closer to acknowledgment. "You were also right not to walk into my office uninvited. That is the only reason you are still in this room."

"I understand," Lucas said.

[Priority Quest Generated.]

[Objective: Prevent Elena Garrity from isolating Victoria Sterling in an off-record meeting before Vertex counsel and David Reed establish a joint channel.]

[Reward: 500 AP.]

[Failure Penalty: Hostile counsel gains uncontrolled access to the primary acquisition target.]

[Current AP Balance: 1600.]

Lucas read the lines without moving his face. The system had decided Elena was the immediate problem. He agreed.

The GC’s phone buzzed on the table. He glanced at the screen, then frowned.

"Lobby security," he said. He put it on speaker.

"Sir," a guard’s voice said. "There’s a woman at the front desk asking for Ms. Sterling’s counsel. She says her name is Elena Garrity. She says she represents Richard Sterling. She’s asking for a conference room."

Victoria went very still.

Lucas looked at the frosted glass door.

Elena had not been exaggerating about the afternoon.