Chapter 2 - THE ARMOR OF ELEANOR VANCE

The Bordeaux Room seemed to shrink, the mahogany walls pressing inward as the magnitude of Richard's betrayal hung in the air.

Draining a corporate account was a felony. But draining a child's trust fund to fund a mistress and cover up corporate incompetence? That was a profound, soul-rotting evil.

Eleanor stood up. She didn't yell. She didn't throw the Waterford crystal glasses that sat perfectly aligned on the table. She simply walked around the large wooden chairs until she was standing directly behind Richard.

He shrank down in his seat, a pathetic, cowering man trying to hide from the wrath he had invited into his life.

"Thomas is sixteen years old," Eleanor said, her voice eerily calm, right next to his ear. "He wants to go to MIT. We set that money aside before he could even walk. I funded eighty percent of it with my severance from Morgan Stanley. And you took it. You took his future to pay for..." She gestured vaguely toward Amber, who was now crying silently, her mascara running down her face.

"I had to!" Richard cried out, his voice cracking. He spun his chair around to face her, his hands raised in a defensive posture. "Ellie, you don't understand the pressure! William was going to fire me!"

"William Stratford?" David Chen asked, his pen pausing over his notepad.

"Yes!" Richard gasped, desperate to offload the blame. "The CEO. William found out about the bad trades I made in the Asian sector. He told me if I didn't cover the margin call personally, he would report me to the SEC and have me thrown in federal prison. I didn't have fifteen million in liquid assets! I had to take Thomas’s trust to bridge the gap, and then I... I borrowed the rest."

Eleanor stared down at him. "You borrowed ten million dollars? From whom, Richard? Bank of America doesn't hand out uncollateralized loans to executives facing federal indictments."

Richard opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He looked at the floor, his shoulders trembling.

Amber, realizing that the man she thought was a multi-millionaire titan of industry was actually a broke, desperate criminal, stood up abruptly.

"I'm leaving," Amber announced, her voice shaking as she grabbed her coat. "I have nothing to do with this. I didn't know about his son's money. I'm out."

"Sit down, Ms. Rawlings," Eleanor snapped without looking at her. "You are holding a Cartier bracelet purchased with stolen funds. If you walk out that door, David will have the police arrest you for receiving stolen property before you reach the valet."

Amber whimpered and sat back down, clutching her clutch to her chest.

Eleanor turned back to Richard. "Who did you borrow the money from?"

Before Richard could answer, he reached into the inner pocket of his Brioni jacket. His hands were shaking so badly he struggled to pull out a small object. He placed it on the table.

It was a heavy, solid silver money clip, engraved with the Stratford Industries corporate crest.

"William gave me this," Richard whispered, staring at the silver object as if it were a venomous snake. "When I was promoted to VP. He told me it was a symbol of trust."

"I don't care about your corporate trinkets," Eleanor said coldly.

"You don't get it," Richard looked up, tears finally spilling over his eyelashes. "William didn't just demand I cover the margins. He pointed me to the lender. A private equity firm operating out of a shadow LLC in Delaware. They gave me the ten million in twenty-four hours. William arranged it."

Eleanor frowned, a new piece of the puzzle clicking into place. Why would the CEO of a publicly traded company force his VP to borrow from a shadow lender to cover corporate losses? Unless William Stratford was the shadow lender, and he was using Richard to launder the company’s toxic debt into personal liability.

William was setting Richard up to be the ultimate fall guy. And Richard, blinded by his own arrogance and fear of losing his status, had walked right into the trap.

Suddenly, the heavy oak door of the Bordeaux Room clicked open.

Henri, the maître d’, stood in the doorway, looking profoundly uncomfortable.

"I apologize deeply for the intrusion, Ms. Vance," Henri said, bowing his head. "I informed this young man that this is a closed private event, but he insisted it was an extreme family emergency."

Eleanor turned toward the door.

Standing behind Henri was a tall, lanky teenager wearing a wrinkled Phillips Exeter Academy blazer, his tie loose, his hair disheveled. He was breathing hard, as if he had run all the way from Grand Central Station.

It was Thomas.

Eleanor’s heart stopped. Thomas was supposed to be three states away, studying for his midterm exams.

"Thomas?" Eleanor gasped, rushing past Richard toward her son. "Sweetheart, what are you doing here? Are you hurt?"

Thomas looked at his mother in her tuxedo suit, then at his father, who was weeping in his chair, and finally at the crying woman in the green dress. The confusion on the sixteen-year-old’s face morphed into a heartbreaking panic.

"Mom," Thomas said, his voice cracking with adolescent strain. He reached into his blazer pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of heavy, watermarked paper.

He held it out with a shaking hand.

"The Headmaster pulled me out of AP Physics this afternoon," Thomas said, a tear escaping his eye. "He said my tuition check bounced three weeks ago. And then... he handed me this. It was sent to the school's billing department by mistake instead of our home address."

Eleanor took the crumpled paper. She unfolded it, her eyes scanning the legal jargon.

It wasn't a tuition bill.