Chapter 4 - The Name Behind Aster
On Sunday afternoon, Daniel Price asked Claire to join a secure call.
Northstar’s counsel was present.
So was Meridian’s outside investigator, a woman named Andrea Bell who spoke carefully and wasted no words.
Before she began, Andrea explained what Claire could and could not share.
“This investigation is ongoing. Some findings are established. Others are still being tested. We need you to distinguish between them.”
Claire appreciated that.
She was tired of people making certainty sound more convenient than truth.
Andrea displayed a chart.
Aster Advisory had been formed less than a year earlier.
Its listed principal was a management company.
That company was controlled by Vanessa’s brother.
There was nothing inherently improper about hiring a relative’s business if the relationship was disclosed, the services were real, and the terms survived independent review.
Those conditions had not been met.
Vanessa had participated in selecting Aster without identifying the family connection.
More troubling, Meridian had already paid a substantial advance for work that could not yet be substantiated.
Claire stared at the dates.
Some of the payments preceded the acquisition committee’s approval.
“Who authorized them?” she asked.
“Ethan,” Andrea said.
Claire closed her eyes briefly.
Andrea continued.
A separate agreement entitled an entity associated with Ethan to a share of Aster’s success fees after closing.
The arrangement had not appeared in his conflict disclosure.
The investigators had obtained the document through the relevant business records.
They were verifying its execution and tracing the circumstances.
Claire listened without interrupting.
When Andrea finished, Daniel spoke.
“Ethan will be given an opportunity to respond. Vanessa too. The independent directors are meeting Tuesday to consider the report and immediate protective measures.”
“What do you need from me?”
“Your technical assessment,” Andrea said. “And the original materials you reviewed. We want the directors to understand why the proposed services and pricing stood out.”
“Not the affair.”
“No.”
Claire felt an unexpected wave of relief.
Nobody was asking her to prove she had been a good enough wife to deserve believing.
Nobody needed photographs from a hotel.
The problem existed on paper.
After the call, she sat at Sophie’s kitchen table for a long time.
She remembered a conversation from two months earlier.
Ethan had asked her to postpone hiring a part-time caregiver for the weeks after delivery.
“We should be disciplined about unnecessary spending,” he had said.
At the time, she had felt embarrassed for asking.
Now she thought of the advance paid to Aster.
It was not simply the money.
It was how easily he had made her needs negotiable while treating his own arrangements as beyond discussion.
Sophie came home carrying groceries.
“How bad?”
Claire told her what she was permitted to share.
Her sister set the bags down slowly.
“Oh, Claire.”
“I don’t know how much he can explain.”
“Do you think there is an explanation?”
“There might be one for a document. Not for all the choices around it.”
That evening, Vanessa called.
Claire almost let it go unanswered.
Then she picked up.
“Claire.”
“Vanessa.”
“I think we should talk woman to woman.”
Claire looked out the window.
“What would you like to say?”
“I know you’re upset. But involving company people in personal problems could hurt hundreds of employees.”
Claire’s grip tightened on the phone.
“Which personal problem are you referring to?”
A pause.
“I’m trying to keep this from becoming destructive.”
“Then answer the investigators accurately.”
Vanessa went silent.
When she spoke again, her voice had changed.
“You don’t understand what Ethan has built.”
“I understand enough to know employees shouldn’t have to carry the cost of undisclosed arrangements.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“Please direct any further communication about the transaction to counsel.”
Claire ended the call.
She wrote down the time and what had been said while it was fresh.
Then she called Mara.
They did not discuss the investigation.
Instead, they talked about Northstar’s first office.
The broken radiator.
The customer who paid an invoice in three installments and sent homemade cookies with the last check.
“Do you remember what you said when we signed our first hospital?” Mara asked.
Claire smiled faintly.
“Probably something embarrassing.”
“You said, ‘Now we have to be worth trusting.’”
Claire looked down at her stomach.
Her daughter pressed a small foot against her side.
“We still do,” she said.
May you like
Outside, the city moved toward Monday.
Inside Meridian, people were beginning to discover that Tuesday’s celebration had become something else entirely.
