Chapter 41
COLIN
Three days after I’d left what certainly felt like the love of my life in Luxor, I was back in Chicago, sitting in a conference room listening to an update from our legal team.
On every inhale, I caught the scent of coffee instead of tea, walnut furniture polish instead of roasted nuts on a sidewalk.
Right now, I honestly missed getting yelled at in Arabic. Even Nanna’s most brutal scoldings had been better than this.
“Unfortunately, it looks like Mallory might just walk away from all this a free woman,” Richard, our lead attorney, was saying. “The federal case against her is much weaker than we’d hoped and her legal team is already pushing it to be dismissed for a lack of evidence.”
My teeth ground as I stared at him. This was the worst possible case scenario, learning that they didn’t have even close to what they needed to put her away. After so long, it seemed almost impossible that it could be true, but the look on Richard’s face told me everything I needed to know.
“How?” I asked instead of ranting and raving the way I wanted to, yelling like Nanna about why no one seemed to be capable of doing their fucking jobs. “They’ve had years to build this case against her. When we last spoke, everyone was fairly confident that the evidence was solid.”
“That’s because at the time, it looked like it was,” he said somberly. “The issue is that they have no concrete evidence. As things stand, they simply can’t tie her directly to the majority of the crimes we’re trying to pin on her.”
I scoffed. “Excuse me? We’re not trying to pin anything on her. She did it.”
“You think she did it,” another attorney stressed lightly. “There’s no proof that she is responsible, regardless of what you or the authorities believe.”
I almost snorted. “I appreciate the legal distinction. Thank you. But if there’s no concrete proof, then why the hell did they arrest her in the first place? What has everyone been doing, twiddling their thumbs, waiting for a signed confession to fall in their laps?”
Richard drew in a deep breath. “The prosecution has circumstantial evidence. There are financial irregularities that can be tied to her and they’ve got witness statements that put her in your father’s office at several key moments, but none of it conclusively places her in control of the transactions that were made. ”
Jane sighed, gesturing vaguely at the mountain of documents on the table between us all. “So after all this, she could just leave? They might’ve extradited her and brought her back here only for her to be able to get another plane out as soon as the charges are dismissed?”
“It’s possible,” Richard said.
I groaned. Possible. God, I hate that word when it’s coming out of his mouth. It’s just his way of saying that he doesn’t have a fucking clue what’s going to happen.
“The federal government still intends to proceed,” he said after giving the implications of that stupid word a minute to sink in. “However, unless additional evidence surfaces, there is a substantial risk that they will not succeed against her.”
“What does that mean for Court?” Jane asked. “We were counting on her conviction for him to be acquitted of the crimes she committed.”
“Yes, we were,” Richard said. “With things the way they are at the moment, the likelihood of her being convicted and your father being acquitted as a result is low.”
“How low?” I folded my arms. “Is there any chance at all?”
“It’s essentially impossible, Colin.”
My eyes slammed shut. After all these years we’d spent trying to untangle the mess he’d made, he wasn’t going to walk away from this after all. Because if it hadn’t been Mallory, then he’d done it. That was the only possible conclusion.
No matter what we’d thought or how stupidly he’d gone about it, we couldn’t rewrite history. With no evidence tying her to those crimes, it could only have been him.
I didn’t want to believe it, but maybe it was time to start making room for that as a possibility. Maybe the great Court Thayer was, in fact, the criminal everyone thought he was and he’d simply fucked up when he’d been so stupid about it.
“If the criminal case falls apart,” Jane said. “Is it possible for the Thayers to sue Mallory directly?”
Richard nodded. “Of course, but our civil position is significantly weaker. Especially without a criminal conviction.”
Jane frowned. “How so?”
“The vast majority of your evidence against Ms. Foundry concerns personal misconduct,” he said carefully. “She conducted a very public affair with your father, but personal relationships don’t establish financial liability.”
I blew out a heavy breath through my nostrils, utterly incapable of believing this. “Just give it to us straight, Richard. What are you really saying?”
To his credit, this time, he looked right into my eyes when he answered.
“What I’m saying is that we’d be left with a he said, she said situation.
While her affair with your father might’ve been terribly embarrassing for the family and damaging to your business, we can’t prove that it resulted in direct financial losses. ”
“So we could sue her, win, and still not get any money?”
He nodded. “I’m afraid so. Her attorney will argue that any and every financial loss we can actually prove was not brought about by the affair, but by your father’s criminal conduct and the very public trial that followed.”
Jane raked her fingers through her loose hair, looking utterly defeated as she stared back at him. “We’re dead in the water, aren’t we? Mallory is going free and Dad is going to be stuck behind bars for the remainder of his sentence. Legally, there’s nothing we can do to clear the family’s name.”
“Correct,” he said gently. “I’m sorry, Jane, but right now, that is realistically what we’re looking at.”
“Not to mention the fact that if we do sue her, we’ll be fueling the media fire all over again,” I said. “We’d be dragging all this sordid history right back into the spotlight for no real reason. It wouldn’t change anything.”
“Yes,” he said. Then he talked for another twenty minutes about things I didn’t bother listening to.
Frankly, the fact that he was still trying to encourage us to have hope after that meeting was sickening. Obviously, we knew that things would change if new evidence came up. We also knew nothing would change if the Feds didn’t unearth anything else.
Finally, the legal team started gathering up their laptops and writing pads, the rest of the executives from our board joining them when they left. Neither Jane or I moved a muscle, though.
When the last attorneys and board members were finally gone, the heavy doors shut behind them and Jane sagged in her chair. “So that’s that.”
“Yeah.”
She hung her head, both palms bracing against the table as she inhaled, exhaled, and then groaned. “I kept thinking we were finally getting somewhere.”
“So did I.”
“But it’s always just another dead end.”
I stared at the folders stacked neatly in front of me, years of paperwork containing the result of dozens of investigations. “There has to be something we’re missing in there.”
Jane sighed but then reached for one of the files and opened it. She extracted a few pages and slid them over to me, revealing a summary of the offshore account.
I glanced up at her. “They still haven’t traced who it belongs to?”
“Nope. There’s hundreds of millions of our money lying in that account, and we know it’s ours, but we can’t touch it because it’s in someone else’s name. Someone who, according to our own investigators, doesn’t exist.”
I frowned. “They haven’t found anything?”
She shook her head. “No social security number, no birth certificate, or tax history, or employment, or even a fucking passport. Someone opened this account. I mean, it sure as hell didn’t open itself, but there’s no trace of them.”
“The Feds haven’t found anything either?” I asked. “Are we sure? I mean, they found the account. They’ve got to have something on who it belongs to.”
A short, humorless laugh burst out of her. “Oh, they think they’ve got something, alright.”
My heart almost skipped a beat, but the fact that this was only coming up now meant that what they’d found wasn’t good. “What do they have?”
“They looked into it while you were in Egypt,” she said. “They tried to tell me that the money was funneled after Dad’s conviction. They implied that I was in on it, Colin. They threatened me with tax evasion if we didn’t cooperate.”
For a brief second, I thought I’d fainted. My vision blacked out and my palms were suddenly clammy. “What?”
“Yeah. Alex is helping to unravel it all,” she said. “If the money moved to that account before Dad’s conviction, that’s one thing, but if it moved after…”
“Then Mallory was still operating,” I said in a hushed whisper. “Oh my God.”
Jane’s eyes slid to mine. “Mallory or someone else, Colin. Someone was still operating, but she fled the country, remember? She wouldn’t have had access to those accounts anymore to be able to move the money after his conviction when she went missing straight after his arrest.”
“Are we sure about that?” I swiped my tongue across my lips, but my mouth was still so dry that it felt like I was back in the Egyptian desert. “When did we change the passwords?”
“Immediately,” she said without hesitation. “The very same day. There’s no way it could’ve been her if the money only moved when they say it did.”
My chin came up when I thought it over. “Okay, well, I’m here now. This is why I came home. To help.”
“No,” she said firmly, sitting up straighter as she turned to give me a stern look. “You need to be in Egypt with Deja. At least until the wedding. That’s where you’re supposed to be right now, and that’s where you’re going.”
“No.” The word came out of me like a gunshot, but I meant it and I wouldn’t let her talk me out of this. “I’m not flying back to Egypt, getting married, and pretending everything is fine while you could be charged with tax evasion.”
Jane blinked hard. “Alex won’t let that happen, Colin. I’ll be fine, but this deal is too important for?—”
“Okay, let me put this another way.” I pushed my chair back, stood, and started pacing. “There will be no wedding unless I fix this.”
“Excuse me?”
“I won’t do it, Jane. I’m not tarnishing Deja’s name by saddling with her with ours.”
“She knows about the case and right now, as far as she and everyone else in the world is concerned, Dad is already guilty, but she agreed to marry you anyway.”
“Sure, she knows that, but she doesn’t know what it’s like to have to live with a reputation like ours following you around.”
“Okay, but you don’t get to decide for her whether she’s strong enough to find out.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.” I stopped pacing to look at her again.
“When I agreed to this, I thought we were well on our way to clearing Dad’s name.
I thought that by the time the wedding happened, all of this would be over, but unless I can find what everyone else is missing, that’s not going to happen. ”
“So you’re saying that you won’t marry her unless Dad’s conviction has been overturned.” Jane shoved a hand into her hair. “Even if we find the evidence we need today, that could still take years, Colin.”
“I know, but at least if we find that evidence today, I’ll know that Deja is marrying into a family that’s going to be redeemed.
I will not saddle her with the burden of being a Thayer otherwise, and I’m not saying I’ll find evidence to overturn his conviction.
I just need to find the missing piece to at least save what we’ve built Thayer into after. ”
My sister blinked at me, clearly stunned, but I’d said my piece now, so I spun on my heels and left the conference room.
As I walked into my office, I caught a faint whiff of the cologne Deja had sent me so many weeks ago.
The room had been shut all the time I’d been gone, so it didn’t come as much of a surprise, but the scent still made me want to book the first flight back to Egypt.
Instead, I dropped into my chair, ready to start calling people. Alex Westwood wasn’t the only person who had contacts. I had plenty of my own across a wide span of occupations, banking, former investigators, and forensic accountants.
Before I picked up my phone, however, a strange thought surfaced in my mind.
There was one person who’d been CEO after my father had gone to prison.
People underestimated him because he spent most of his time surfing, drinking cocktails, and wearing shirts that looked like they belonged in a Jimmy Buffett tribute band, but he’d had access to our accounts.
He’d been here when we’d been in the thick of things—and no one had been looking at him.
My uncle Andrew.
I wonder if he might know something about that offshore account because I suddenly have a feeling that he does.