Chapter 3: The Letter
Julian Cross stood at the window of his corner office on the forty-first floor and watched the ferry cross Elliott Bay through the morning drizzle. Below him, containers moved in the harbor yard, stacking themselves according to rules he had written twenty-five years ago.
Behind him, Priya Raman set a folder on his desk with a soft slap that meant she had been waiting for him to turn around.
"Sir," she said softly.
Julian turned. Priya was thirty-eight, immaculate, and the only person in this building who spoke to him plainly, without the varnish of money between them. Her expression said she was about to ruin his morning on purpose.
"I have a problem," she said, "and I am going to need your full attention, which, for the record, I have requested before."
"You always get it," Julian said dryly.
"You glance at it," Priya said. "There is a difference."
She opened the folder and slid a single sheet of letterhead from the Seattle Ledger across the desk.
"Read it," Priya said.
The letter was short. The Ledger was preparing a story based on an allegation by Peter Kowalski, a former gardener at Harrowmere Hall, who claimed that estate security personnel had assaulted him during an incident at the gates last spring. The paper was seeking comment before publication. The deadline was Friday.
"Peter Kowalski," Julian said. "He worked the east gardens for thirty years."
"Worked them," Priya said. "He retired two years ago. The hip."
Julian read the letter again. "An assault. At my gates. Last spring."
"That is what the man says."
"What happened last spring?"
"That is the question, sir."
Julian reached for the phone. "Carter."
Priya sighed and hit the speaker button before he could. "You are going to want him on record," she said.
The lawyer picked up on the second ring. "Julian."
"You have seen the Ledger letter?" Julian said.
"I have," Carter said. The speaker gave his voice a thin, underwater quality. "I called the reporter an hour ago. This is a man with a grievance and a newspaper hunting a headline about a billionaire's security thugs. We offer a quiet settlement, no admission, and it goes away. We do it today."
"A settlement for what?" Priya said, her voice flat. "We have not verified that anything happened."
"That is precisely the point," Carter said. "Verification takes weeks. A story takes two days. We pay, and we control the ending."
"Julian," Carter said, "you have a board, a company, a name. Let me make this a check instead of a scandal."
"No," Julian said.
"No?" Carter said.
"No settlement," Julian said. "Not until I know what happened."
"Julian."
"Eleanor's name is on that estate," Julian said. "If a man who worked for us for thirty years says my security put hands on him, I am not writing a check to stop the noise. I want the truth."
The line was quiet. "You are asking me to let a story run."
"I am asking you to wait until Friday," Julian said.
He hung up, and Priya said, "I know that look. You had it before you bought the Spokane line, and before you married Eleanor, for that matter."
Julian sat down and thought of Harrowmere Hall, the white house at the end of the drive, the gardens Eleanor had planted and he had barely walked through in the fourteen months since she died. He had been in Seattle, on this floor, while the estate ran itself.
"Delgado runs security," Julian said.
"Royce Delgado," Priya said. "Forty-seven. Army MP. You hired him eight years ago."
"If there is rot in my house," Julian said slowly, "I want to see it with my own eyes."
Priya frowned. "Sir, you cannot ask your security chief whether his men are beating up gardeners. He will say no, and you will have told him exactly what you are looking for."
"I know," Julian said. "So I will not ask him. I will go as someone he does not know."
Priya folded her arms.
"You are going undercover," she said. "At your own gate. As what, a drifter?"
"Three days," Julian said. "I tell nobody. Not the staff. Not the household. No one on the grounds will know my face if I am dirty enough and quiet enough."
"You are fifty-two years old and worth four billion dollars."
"Closer to five," Julian said.
"That makes it worse."
Julian leaned forward. "Priya. If Kowalski is telling the truth, the man running my security is a thug. If he is lying, I owe Delgado the truth before the Ledger prints anything. Either way, I cannot learn it from this chair."
Priya looked at him for a long moment. Then she shook her head once, the way she did when she had decided to lose an argument she intended to win later.
"A drifter," she said. "At the gate of Harrowmere Hall. The neighbors will call the police."
"The neighbors are a mile away," Julian said. "And Delgado's men will do what Delgado's men do. That is the point."
"Three days," Priya said. "And then what?"
"Then I know."
She picked up the folder and tapped its edge against the desk.
"I will tell your calendar you are on a fishing trip," she said. "Nobody has seen you hold a rod in ten years, which makes it perfect."
"Thank you," Julian said.
"Do not thank me. I am against this. I am on the record as against this."
"Noted," Julian said, and almost smiled.
Priya moved to the door and stopped. "Sir. Be careful out there. The man at your gate will not know he is dealing with Julian Cross."
"That," Julian said, "is exactly the point."
She left. Julian turned back to the window, where the ferry was crossing the bay again through the rain. Somewhere between this office and that gate, something had gone wrong, and he had been too far away to see it.
He was done being far away.