Chapter 8 - Page Eleven
I walked into Samuel's temporary interview room and dropped the printed email on the table.
"Explain it."
His eyes moved to the date.
Not the words.
The date.
That told me enough.
"Succession planning," he said.
"For a healthy forty-nine-year-old?"
"We were building a company worth billions. You insure against ugly possibilities."
"You asked how to take control if I stayed alive."
He pushed the paper back.
"I asked how the company survives if you cannot run it. Those are not the same thing."
A detective watched from the corner.
Samuel turned toward him.
"Am I under arrest?"
"Not at this time."
"Then I am going home."
I blocked the door.
"One more thing."
He looked at me.
"Vanessa said there was a document I was supposed to sign after the wedding. A safety net."
Samuel's face did not move.
"Probably one of Brent's tricks."
"You told me yesterday not to sign anything else."
"That was good advice."
"Was it?"
He reached into his leather portfolio.
The detective's hand went toward his belt.
Samuel slowly removed a document.
"I came here yesterday with this because I was worried Vanessa had compromised company control."
The title read EMERGENCY CONTINUITY AGREEMENT.
My name appeared at the top.
"You already had it prepared."
"Every chairman should."
"For six months?"
A flicker crossed his face.
I had guessed.
Now I knew.
I took the document without signing it.
"Martin will review it."
"Good."
He gathered his portfolio.
"Richard, I have spent most of my adult life keeping you from walking off cliffs because you think confidence is a substitute for caution. Your fiancee robbed you. Your daughter hid an investigation from you. And somehow I am the enemy because I wrote a continuity plan?"
He moved past me.
At the doorway he stopped.
"Take your blood-pressure medication. You look awful."
Claire, standing in the hall, heard him.
Her eyes narrowed.
Twenty minutes later, Martin spread the agreement across the hotel conference table.
"This is not temporary in the way it sounds."
I pulled out a chair.
"Show me."
He flipped to page eleven.
"Temporary voting authority goes to the designated continuity officer during a declared emergency. Fine. But if two physicians certify you incapacitated for more than seventy-two hours, revocation requires a supermajority of the board plus court approval."
Claire stared at him.
"So if Dad had a stroke -"
"Whoever holds this authority could stay in control for months. Maybe longer."
"Who is designated?"
Martin slid his finger down the page.
The name was already typed.
SAMUEL GRANT.
My phone buzzed with a message from Helen.
I opened the attachment.
Document metadata.
Created: six months earlier.
Modified: three days before the wedding.
Author: S. Grant.
Claire read over my shoulder.
"He had this before Vanessa ever convinced you to marry her."
"I proposed four months ago."
Martin's phone rang.
He answered, listened, then stood so quickly his chair rolled backward.
"What?" I asked.
He put the phone on speaker.
Helen's voice came through.
"I found a linked medical authorization file. Same project folder."
"What kind of authorization?"
"Richard's emergency physician release. It names two doctors."
Martin looked at me.
"Do you know them?"
I did.
May you like
Both had been recommended by Samuel.
