Chapter 2 - After the Music Stopped
Marcus remained at the hotel long after the orchestra packed its equipment.
The ballroom that had seemed magnificent two hours earlier now looked ordinary beneath working lights. Florists removed arrangements. Catering employees rolled linen-covered carts toward service elevators. Reed Global’s enormous anniversary logo still glowed against the wall, but most of the people who had gathered beneath it were gone.
Leah sat across from Marcus at a small conference table in a private hospitality suite.
Between them lay the notice from Cole Meridian.
“The claim is based on a purchase option your father signed in 2009,” she said.
Marcus nodded.
“I know the document.”
“You’ve seen it?”
“The original agreement. My father needed cash during the recession. Victor loaned him a hundred eighty thousand dollars against part of the industrial property.”
“The Foundry parcel?”
“Two acres inside what eventually became the Foundry tract.”
Leah turned another page.
“Cole Meridian says the option remains enforceable until March 2031.”
Marcus looked up sharply.
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because it expired in 2011.”
Leah tapped the copy attached to the notice.
“This version says otherwise.”
Marcus pulled the document toward himself.
The first page looked familiar.
So did the final signature page.
Leon Reed’s signature crossed the bottom in thick blue ink exactly as Marcus remembered it.
But the second page was wrong.
He knew it immediately.
“This isn’t the language.”
“You’re sure?”
“My father complained about that option for years. Twenty-four months. He called it the most expensive two years of his life.”
Leah leaned closer.
“This copy states twenty-two years.”
Marcus stared.
The number sat neatly inside a paragraph governing exercise rights.
Too neatly.
“What records do we have?”
“Whatever transferred from your father’s estate into the family holding company.”
“My mother kept most of his personal files.”
“We need them.”
Marcus leaned back.
Eight years of work on Foundry flashed through his mind.
The property had once contained his father’s failing machine shop, two warehouses, a truck lot, and a strip of contaminated industrial ground that no developer had wanted.
Marcus had slowly acquired adjoining lots after Reed Global became profitable. The company now planned to transform the entire area into an operations and technology campus.
Thirty-two million dollars in state and municipal incentives depended on construction beginning before year-end.
A title dispute could destroy the schedule.
A knock sounded.
Adrian Brooks entered.
He had removed his tuxedo jacket and looked considerably less polished than he had during the gala.
“Mr. Reed, Leah.”
Marcus gestured toward the chair.
“Sit.”
Adrian obeyed.
For several seconds nobody spoke.
Then Adrian said, “I owe you an apology about Madison.”
“You didn’t know.”
“No. But what she said—”
“Is between her and me.”
Adrian nodded.
He seemed relieved.
Marcus was not finished.
“How long have you been dating her?”
“Seven months.”
“How did you meet?”
“A charity auction.”
“Does she know what you do here?”
Adrian hesitated.
“Obviously.”
“I mean specifically.”
Leah watched him now.
Adrian noticed.
“What is this?”
Marcus slid the Cole Meridian notice across the table.
Adrian read the name.
His face changed.
“Cole?”
“Yes.”
“As in Madison?”
“Her father.”
Adrian looked genuinely shocked.
“I knew her father was in real estate. I didn’t know—”
“How much have you told Madison about Foundry?”
Adrian’s eyes lifted.
Nothing in the room moved.
“General things.”
“What does that mean?”
“That we’re developing a new campus.”
“Public information.”
“Yes.”
Marcus folded his hands.
“What else?”
Adrian stared at the paper again.
“We talk about work.”
“How much?”
Adrian’s breathing changed.
Marcus recognized the moment when an executive stopped choosing the most favorable answer and started remembering the dangerous one.
“She knew I was being considered for a role connected to the expansion.”
“Timeline?”
“Some.”
“Budget?”
“No.”
“Property acquisitions?”
Adrian looked toward Leah.
That was answer enough.
Leah spoke carefully.
“Adrian, this is not a disciplinary interview yet. But anything you tell us may become part of an internal investigation.”
“Investigation?”
Marcus’s voice stayed level.
“Answer the question.”
Adrian rubbed his thumb against his watchband.
“She asked why I kept traveling to the South Side. I told her we were trying to finish several adjacent acquisitions before the announcement.”
Marcus felt something cold settle inside him.
“Did you identify the parcels?”
“Not intentionally.”
“Meaning?”
“I had a map on my home office desk once.”
Leah stopped writing.
“Did she see it?”
Adrian swallowed.
“She might have.”
Marcus stood and walked toward the window.
Chicago stretched below them, windows flickering against the dark.
Behind him Adrian said, “Marcus, I would never give a competitor confidential information.”
“You didn’t know she was connected to a competitor.”
“No.”
“That doesn’t make the information less confidential.”
Adrian went silent.
Marcus turned.
“When was that map at your apartment?”
“Three weeks ago.”
Leah immediately opened her laptop.
“What happened in the property market three weeks ago?”
She searched internal reports.
Marcus watched her face tighten.
“What?”
Leah rotated the screen.
Three small parcels bordering Reed Global’s Foundry property had changed ownership within the past eighteen days.
The buyers appeared unrelated.
Lake Birch LLC.
Midwest Harbor Partners.
Ashby Urban Ventures.
But all three had been formed within the previous month.
Marcus looked at Adrian.
“Did Madison ever use your work computer?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Adrian frowned.
Then uncertainty moved across his face.
“One night she ordered food from it because her phone was charging.”
Leah asked, “Were you in the room?”
“At first.”
“And afterward?”
Adrian did not answer immediately.
Marcus already knew.
“Think carefully.”
Adrian’s voice fell.
“I went to sleep.”
Marcus glanced again at the property records.
Three new shell companies.
Three perfectly positioned acquisitions.
A sudden claim by Victor Cole.
And Madison appearing at Marcus’s corporate gala on the same night the claim arrived.
Leah closed the folder.
“Tomorrow morning, cybersecurity images Adrian’s devices and logs his account activity.”
Adrian went pale.
Marcus did not enjoy that.
He also did not rescue him from it.
“Until we know what happened,” Marcus said, “you are removed from all Foundry-related work.”
“Marcus—”
“That is not punishment. It is containment.”
Adrian lowered his head.
Marcus gathered the documents.
Then Adrian spoke.
“There’s something else.”
Marcus stopped.
Adrian stared at the table.
“Two weeks ago Madison asked me when Reed Global planned to announce the final Foundry acquisitions.”
Leah’s pen froze.
“What did you tell her?”
“I said before Thanksgiving if everything closed.”
Marcus looked at the date on Victor Cole’s notice.
October 13.
Barely five weeks before Thanksgiving.
The timing was too precise.
“What did Madison say after you told her?”
Adrian closed his eyes.
“At the time I thought she was joking.”
Marcus waited.
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Adrian opened them again.
“She said, ‘Then somebody smart still has time to get there first.’”
