Chapter 10 - THE DOCUMENTS PETER TOOK
Peter admitted removing the documents.
He claimed Garrett ordered him to transfer them to Lawson Meridian’s legal archive.
The archive contained nothing.
Garrett said Peter acted alone.
Marianne said she had never known the box existed.
The bank photograph placed a woman resembling her at the first access, but the image could not identify her conclusively.
Peter led investigators to a private storage facility near O’Hare.
The unit was rented by a consulting company linked to Arcwell.
Inside were empty archive boxes, shredded paper, and a portable document scanner.
Forensic technicians recovered fragments.
Most were too damaged to reconstruct.
One strip contained my father’s signature.
Another contained the phrase “sixty-two percent voting control.”
The originals had been scanned before destruction.
The scanner’s memory card was missing.
Peter said Garrett took it.
Garrett said Peter kept it as insurance.
The central ownership evidence now depended on certified copies, attorney records, bank wires, tax filings, and decades of corporate conduct.
That could be enough.
Originals would make the case cleaner.
At the supervised visitation center, Garrett asked to hold our son without the blanket.
The monitor allowed it.
He cradled the baby against his chest and whispered something I could not hear through the observation glass.
The monitor later wrote it down.
“Daddy is going to bring you home when Mommy stops being angry.”
The statement violated the order against discussing litigation around the child.
The judge warned Garrett that another violation could suspend visits.
He called the warning evidence that I controlled the court.
He still described every consequence as my action.
The divorce petition became necessary before I emotionally accepted it.
Rachel filed on my behalf.
Garrett responded by requesting possession of the marital home, expanded parenting time, and an equal division of my trust distributions.
Trust principal inherited from my father was separate property.
Income used during marriage required accounting.
The law would not simply give him half of everything or deny him all access because he behaved terribly.
We began tracing eleven years of money.
I discovered Garrett had charged personal travel, Marianne’s jewelry, political donations, and private club dues to Lawson Meridian.
Some expenses had been approved by the board.
Others had been disguised.
I had signed annual summaries without reading the underlying ledgers.
My failure did not make the expenses proper.
It made them easier to hide.
Dana Ruiz resurfaced through an attorney in Denver.
She had not disappeared voluntarily.
Lawson Meridian’s head of security confronted her with photographs of her brother entering a gambling treatment center. Garrett’s office offered severance if she withdrew her allegations.
She accepted the money, left Chicago, and regretted it.
Her brother encouraged her to come forward.
Dana preserved one copy of the complete Arcwell diligence report.
It proved Garrett knew about the environmental liabilities and Marianne’s creditor interest.
The board’s independent committee suspended Garrett as chief executive pending investigation.
He lost operational authority.
He retained his shares, director seat, and right to defend himself.
That afternoon, the portable scanner’s missing memory card arrived anonymously at Samuel’s office.
It contained images of every document removed from the bank box.
The files were authentic scans.
The courier envelope carried no fingerprints useful to investigators.
One document had never appeared in our certified records.
A private letter signed by my father and Garrett.
May you like
It granted Garrett an option to purchase the Vance voting block for one dollar if I ever filed for divorce.
The date was three months before our wedding.
