Chapter 8 - What Sophie Knew
Sophie had borrowed money from Mark.
Not for herself.
For me.
Two years earlier, she discovered Mark and Brenda leaving a restaurant together.
They weren't yet having an affair.
According to Brenda, their relationship became physical months later.
But Sophie suspected something.
She confronted Mark.
He told her Brenda was helping with a confidential Crestview acquisition.
Then he asked Sophie about my finances.
That alarmed her.
So Sophie hired a forensic accountant.
Privately.
The $250,000?
Mark discovered what she was doing and offered her money to stop.
She accepted it.
I stared at her through the video screen.
“You took hush money?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I used his money to keep investigating him.”
I blinked.
She transferred almost all of it to legal and forensic retainers.
My daughter had been investigating her father for two years.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because every time I tried to talk about Dad, you defended him.”
That hurt because it was true.
Mark's late nights.
His arrogance.
The way he eased me out.
I had explanations for everything.
Marriage trains you to interpret familiar behavior generously.
Sometimes too generously.
Sophie had uncovered pieces.
Blue Cedar.
Fourth Street.
Unusual Crestview share preparations.
But she lacked access to prove wrongdoing.
Then she discovered something about Brenda.
Brenda had contacted her six months earlier.
Anonymous email.
CHECK NORTHLINE.
Same Brenda.
Playing every side.
Why?
Because by then Mark had begun threatening her.
Their affair had turned ugly.
He controlled her job.
Promised money.
Withheld it.
Used her credentials.
Brenda wanted exits everywhere.
Andrew.
Sophie.
Eventually me.
She had created a network of people holding pieces of Mark’s secrets without any one person knowing the whole picture.
Smart.
Cowardly.
Effective.
Then Sophie showed me one document her investigator had recovered.
Crestview board minutes from 2003.
Manuel attended.
He proposed that I become chief financial officer.
Mark opposed it.
Reason recorded:
Laura prefers family responsibilities and does not wish to assume executive duties.
I had never said that.
In 2003, I wanted the CFO position.
Mark told me Dad opposed it because Daniel was young and my mother needed help.
Dad told me Mark thought I wanted more time at home.
Each man believed the other was carrying my preference.
Mark had lied to both.
That was the beginning.
Not Brenda.
Not Northline.
Twenty-three years earlier, my husband had already started removing me from the company.
Slowly enough that I mistook it for life.
I cried that night.
Not because of the affair.
Because I remembered the woman I had been at twenty-nine.
Sharp.
Ambitious.
Excellent with numbers.
I thought motherhood had naturally redirected me.
Some of it had.
But Mark had nudged too.
Then nudged again.
Until twenty years later he could call Crestview “my company” and nobody corrected him.
Including me.
The next morning I walked into Crestview headquarters for the first time in eleven months.
Employees stared.
I went to my old office.
Brenda’s name was on the door.
Of course.
I removed nothing.
She was still technically employed pending investigation.
Instead I entered the conference room.
Cynthia had arranged an emergency shareholder meeting.
Mark arrived with counsel.
He looked at me.
“What are you doing?”
I opened my father’s original ledger.
“The job I was doing before you decided I wanted to stop.”
Then I asked for the first vote.
Independent forensic audit.
Passed.
Second.
Suspend all Northline negotiations.
Passed.
Third.
Remove Mark as president pending investigation.
He laughed.
“You can't.”
Cynthia slid Blue Cedar’s restored Schedule C across the table.
As of our twenty-fifth anniversary, beneficial rights reverted to me.
Those rights included a block of Crestview preferred voting shares Dad had parked inside Blue Cedar.
Mark had concealed them.
I didn't own 49 percent of Crestview’s voting power.
May you like
I controlled 61.
Mark stopped laughing.
