Chapter 6 - Northstar
Priscilla did not answer Dean’s question.
Instead, she walked past him into the living room, picked up her handbag, and removed a slim silver laptop.
“If we’re doing this,” she said, “we’re doing all of it.”
She set the laptop on the marble coffee table beneath the Christmas tree.
Sylvia remained standing.
Dean followed slowly.
Priscilla opened a folder labeled NORTHSTAR.
Dean stared at the screen.
“You have company files on your personal computer?”
“They’re my files.”
“Because Northstar is yours?”
Priscilla looked directly at Sylvia.
“I created it.”
The admission was almost quiet.
Dean sat down as though someone had struck him.
“You told me Northstar belonged to a woman you consulted for.”
“It does.”
“Who?”
“Me.”
His face darkened. “Four hundred thousand dollars.”
“I earned money.”
“For billing my company?”
“For fixing problems your company created.”
Sylvia stepped closer.
“Explain exactly what Northstar did.”
Priscilla began clicking through folders.
There were event proposals, dinner schedules, investor profiles, hotel presentations, and correspondence with Martin Vale. Some work was real. Sylvia could see that immediately.
That made the scheme more dangerous.
Fraud dressed as nonsense was easy to expose. Fraud wrapped around legitimate work could survive for years.
Priscilla opened a spreadsheet.
“Grant Hospitality needed capital relationships. Dean needed access to people who would take his calls without Richard’s name carrying the conversation. I built that network.”
“You invoiced more than a million dollars,” Sylvia said.
“Over fourteen months.”
“Without disclosing that you owned the vendor.”
“Dean knew I consulted.”
“I did not know this was your company,” Dean snapped.
Priscilla turned on him.
“You never asked.”
“I approved payments because you told me Northstar was independent.”
“I told you it was effective.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No, Dean. It’s the difference between what I said and what you needed to hear.”
Sylvia watched her son’s anger collapse into recognition.
Priscilla had found his oldest weakness and built a business model around it.
Rebecca entered from the study carrying the shareholder agreement.
“Northstar’s ownership should have been disclosed under the related-party transaction policy.”
Priscilla shrugged. “Then discipline Dean. He approved the invoices.”
Rebecca’s eyes narrowed. “You solicited them.”
“I’m not an officer.”
“You may still have civil liability.”
Priscilla’s smile returned, but it was thinner now.
Sylvia asked, “What was the four hundred thousand for?”
“A margin call.”
Dean closed his eyes.
Sylvia looked at him.
“What margin call?”
He rubbed his forehead.
“I invested in a hospitality technology fund last year.”
“Personally?”
“Yes.”
“With borrowed money?”
Silence.
Priscilla answered for him.
“He leveraged part of his brokerage account.”
Sylvia felt disbelief become exhaustion.
“How much did you lose?”
Dean’s voice barely carried.
“Seven hundred and eighty thousand.”
Rebecca exhaled.
Sylvia sat opposite him.
“And Northstar sent you four hundred thousand.”
“I thought it was Priscilla’s consulting income.”
“You knew she had suddenly earned four hundred thousand dollars and did not ask from whom?”
Dean looked at her.
“I didn’t want to know.”
There it was.
The first completely honest sentence he had spoken since Christmas Eve.
Sylvia nodded slowly.
“That may be the most important thing you’ve said.”
Priscilla slammed the laptop shut.
“Oh, please. You want to turn weakness into a crime because it lets you remain the righteous one.”
Sylvia looked at her.
“You forged my signature.”
“I did not.”
“You used my credit card.”
Priscilla’s expression hardened.
“You gave me the card number last year for the museum benefit.”
“For one transaction.”
“And you never said I couldn’t use it again.”
Rebecca spoke sharply. “That is not how authorization works.”
Priscilla ignored her.
Sylvia said, “How did my card get attached to the Hawthorne account?”
Priscilla folded her arms.
“I don’t remember.”
“Try.”
“No.”
Dean stood.
“You told me Mom approved those dinners.”
“She approved Northstar.”
“She approved a seventy-five-thousand-dollar engagement, not unlimited access to her Visa.”
Priscilla’s eyes flashed. “Now you care?”
Dean flinched.
She stepped closer.
“You ate the dinners. You shook Vale’s hand. You begged him for financing. You signed the side letter. You spent the money when it landed in our brokerage account. Don’t stand there pretending I did this while you were asleep.”
Sylvia saw Dean’s face crumple beneath the accusation.
Priscilla was cruel.
She was also right.
Rebecca’s phone rang.
She stepped into the hall, answered, then returned two minutes later.
“Helen found the original email attaching the Vale side letter.”
Dean looked up.
“So?”
“It includes a second document that wasn’t in the packet you showed the board.”
Sylvia’s stomach tightened.
“What document?”
“A purchase option.”
Dean frowned. “I never signed a purchase option.”
Rebecca handed him the phone.
His face changed as he read.
The option gave Vale Capital the right, upon default of the bridge loan, to purchase Grant House at the fifty-eight-million-dollar valuation.
At the bottom was Dean’s electronic signature.
Beneath his was another.
Sylvia Grant.
Sylvia took the phone.
Her signature looked perfect.
Dean whispered, “I swear I’ve never seen that page.”
Priscilla stared at the darkened fireplace.
Rebecca said, “The document metadata shows it was created three weeks after Dean signed the side letter.”
Sylvia looked at Priscilla.
“By whom?”
“We’re checking.”
Priscilla reached for her laptop.
Dean put his hand over it.
“No.”
She glared at him.
“Move.”
“No.”
The screen had awakened.
A notification appeared in the corner.
MARTIN VALE: DELETE THE DRAFTS. USE THE CLEAN FILE.
Nobody spoke.
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Priscilla’s face went white.
Dean read the message twice, as if repetition might change its meaning. Then he lifted his hand from the laptop and stepped away from Priscilla. Sylvia felt no triumph. The woman in red velvet had spent months building channels through the family business, but Dean had opened every door she used. Rebecca photographed the notification with her phone. “Nobody deletes anything,” she said. Priscilla looked at Dean. “You think she’ll save you now?” Dean’s voice shook. “I’m starting to understand that saving me was the problem.” Sylvia turned toward him, stunned by the echo of Richard’s warning.
