Gavin started shouting.
Somebody planted it. Somebody was setting him up. I’d done it. Halston had done it. Kevin had done it.
By the time he accused the night janitor, nobody in that office believed a single word.
Eleanor asked everyone to leave Gavin’s office except Gavin, Daniel, and me. Then she closed the door.
“Why?” she said.
That was all. One word.
Gavin dropped into his big leather chair. He looked broken.
“I didn’t steal anything.”
Daniel set the flash drive on the desk in front of him. “Then explain that.”
Gavin covered his face with his hands. For ten long seconds, he didn’t say anything at all.
Then he whispered one word.
“Field.”
I frowned. “What?”
“My partner. Richard Field.”
The agency was called Mercer & Field. But I’d never once met Field. Almost nobody had. The office legend was that Richard Field had retired to Arizona years ago and kept some small minority stake.
“Richard wanted to see your acquisition offer,” Gavin told Eleanor. “He thought the valuation was too low. He thought you were lowballing us.”
“So you gave him my confidential documents?”
“I gave him access. I put them on Chris’s machine so they couldn’t be traced to me. If anything ever came out, it would be…”
He stopped.
“It would be me,” I said. “You set me up to take the fall.”
“That’s corporate espionage, Mr. Mercer,” said Daniel. “That’s a federal matter.”
Gavin slammed his fist on the desk. “I was trying to protect my company!”
“Our company,” said a voice from the doorway.
We all turned.
A man in his early sixties was standing there. Tall. Silver hair. A camel-colored overcoat. A tan that said he really had been in Arizona.
I’d never seen him before.
But Gavin had. His face went completely white.
“Richard.”
Richard Field walked into the office. He looked at Gavin with open disgust.
“You weren’t protecting this company, Gavin. You were protecting yourself. Like always.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Mrs. Halston’s general counsel called me at noon. I got on the first flight out of Phoenix.” He turned to Eleanor. “Mrs. Halston. I want to be very clear. I never asked Gavin for one page of your documents. Not one. I asked him for a copy of the valuation summary. The one he’s legally required to share with me as a forty-nine percent shareholder. He refused for three months.”
Then Richard looked at me.
“You must be Christopher.”
“Yes, sir.”
He gave me a grim little smile. “I’ve been hearing your name for years.”
“Hopefully not all bad.”
“Mostly from clients, telling me Gavin was taking credit for your ideas.”
“That’s enough,” Gavin snapped.
Richard ignored him completely.
Ethan Blake is a skilled Creative Content Specialist with a talent for crafting engaging and thought-provoking narratives. With a strong background in storytelling and digital content creation, Ethan brings a unique perspective to his role at TheArchivists, where he curates and produces captivating content for a global audience.
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