Her new attorney, Diane Marsh, contacted Robert soon afterward.
“My client is prepared to discuss settlement,” she told him.
The legal process moved from there.
David Collins was charged with embezzlement in February.
Marcus was charged in March.
Both retained attorneys.
I stayed out of the criminal cases except where company cooperation was required.
Whatever happened to them was no longer a family argument.
It belonged to the legal system.
The thirty-three former employees without fraud findings received severance packages based on years of service and positive references.
Three later found work with companies where I had professional relationships.
One of them, a project manager named Celeste Ruiz, called me six weeks later.
She had worked for us for four years.
Her only connection to Martin was that he was her godfather.
“I want you to know I understand,” she said.
I sat at my desk with the phone pressed to my ear and found that conversation harder than Martin’s call.
Celeste had done nothing wrong.
Systems built through favors have a way of hurting people who never asked to be part of the favor.
The divorce settled in March.
I am not going to give the numbers.
Those belong to Clare, me, our attorneys, and the court.
I will say this: the description of me as an ordinary salaried employee did not survive Patricia Huang’s financial review.
Clare received what the legal process determined she was entitled to.
The rest of the plan she had been building did not work the way she expected.
She moved back in with her parents.
I learned that from Sophie.
Sophie spent the holidays with me in the hotel.
In January, we moved into a rented townhouse.
The furnace worked.
There was a guest room.
I made that room hers before I unpacked most of my own things.
One afternoon, she stood in the doorway holding a box of books.
“Do you need me to get more stuff from Mom’s?”
“Only what you want.”
She thought about it.
“I want the books.”
“All right.”
“I don’t need the other stuff.”
I nodded.
We put the books on the shelf.
Martin contacted me one last time on March 8 at 11:22 a.m.
I had blocked his original number, so I do not know how he got through.
Maybe he used another phone.
Maybe someone at the office gave him the number without understanding why they should not.
He left a voicemail.
I listened once.
He sounded different.
Older.
Quieter.
“Daniel, I want you to know that I didn’t realize about the company. About who you were.”