A Question Of Honor. Mary Anne Wilson

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СКАЧАТЬ and suddenly...”

      She had thought she’d never do more than trim her hair, but that had changed. “I wanted to fool all of them, and I did.” She motioned to the tall windows covered by the heavy drapes. “I wanted to be here with you when Baron told me what was happening.” She tried to keep her voice steady. “You haven’t heard from him about the subpoena, have you?”

      He sat forward so abruptly that some papers skittered off the desk and settled on the thick Turkish rug. “No, but the grand jury is being impanelled. Got word yesterday about that. They’re going to file charges. It’s a given.” He raked his thick hair with his fingers. “They have to.”

      Faith couldn’t even swallow, her throat was so tight. “Maybe they won’t,” she offered up, but knew she was being delusional.

      “They will,” he said with resignation, “but I won’t let them pull you any more deeply into this. Besides, you can’t tell them anything they don’t already know.” He spoke evenly, and she knew that he believed that. “What would they gain, really?”

      She wanted to point out that she had been and still was in the middle of things since that awful day four months ago. Federal agents had swarmed LSC Investments, where her father had worked for over twenty years and had been a full partner for all but four of those years. That day everything had changed.

      She’d been in her glass-walled office talking to a prospective client about investments when she’d heard the loud voices and confusion in the main area. Then an assistant marshal had been at her door, telling her to step away from her desk. She’d been among the group of employees to be escorted off the premises, forced to leave everything behind. Her father and the other partners hadn’t been so fortunate. She hadn’t seen her father again for almost twenty-four hours. The Feds had confiscated everything to do with the business, from client files, computers, logs, employee workups and all banking information, both domestic and foreign.

      Now, after four torturous months, there was going to be a decision about what charges would be filed against the partners, two of the company’s financial officers and seven other employees. A bad dream had irrevocably turned into a nightmare. Her world and her father’s were taken over by lawyers and bail and affidavits and depositions, and her father was central to it all.

      Accusations of mishandling clients’ money, obstructing justice and fraudulent practices came down like a stinging hailstorm. And even with one of the best legal teams in the country working to prove her father’s innocence, she had watched him sink deeper and deeper into the abyss.

      She swallowed hard, hoping her face didn’t give away her sickening fear. He still didn’t know what she knew. She found she couldn’t tell him. And now... A week ago, Baron Little had mentioned that her name was being bandied about to receive a subpoena to testify in front of the grand jury. That had come out of the blue for her, shattering any hope she had of being able to avoid that very thing.

      She couldn’t tell the attorney anything, not when she couldn’t trust that he wouldn’t have to reveal what she knew to the prosecution. She wasn’t about to tell anyone about eight months ago when she’d gone to her father’s office to find out when he could leave for home. A simple thing.

      Even when she’d arrived outside his office and heard the raised voices of two of the partners, she hadn’t thought much of it. They’d had disagreements over the years. She’d been ready to turn around and just go home on her own, but she stopped when she heard Winston Linz, a founder in the company, speak harshly to her father. “You’re not simon-pure, Ray. None of us are. You’re in this with us, and it’s working. Leave it alone. The commission from this deal will be enough for all of us to retire on someday.”

      Her father’s voice had come back with burning anger in it. “Don’t you threaten me, Win. Don’t you even try!”

      “Works both ways. If all you’ve done comes out, you’re dead in the water. So do what you have to do and make it happen, or—”

      “Or?” her father demanded.

      “Or it’s over, at least for you.”

      She heard another voice talking about an account of a client she had never heard of before, Kenner Associates. It sounded as if the man was reading from a file about a new investment account. He finished with “They want it done. They want it finalized and they do not want anyone screwing it up.”

      “You don’t have a choice, Ray,” Linz said bluntly.

      All of them were silent for a long moment, then her father spoke again in a tone that sounded calm, but Faith knew otherwise. “It will be finished. I will make sure of it personally with Mason. I’ll sew it up.”

      She’d walked away, not understanding and not asking anyone about it, not even her father when he eventually got home that evening. Even though they worked in the same company, doing the same things, hers less important than his, they both took care of their own business. He never questioned her about any of her clients. She would never question him about his dealings. And it was forgotten until the world exploded and that same client, Kenner Associates, came up again.

      It had turned out that Kenner Associates was a year-long sting operation, executed to trap those involved in substantial financial misdeeds. Faith had been sick, immediately knowing that if she told anyone about what she’d heard, it could be the end of her father. It showed knowledge and complicity with the others in the core deal where violations had occurred.

      Her testimony, if she ever had to give it, could be the last nail in the coffin of Raymond Sizemore. She would be responsible for sending her father to prison. And she couldn’t do that. She wouldn’t. She was also a horrible liar, so not being truthful on the stand was out.

      She tasted bitterness in her throat. “I need to know if I’ll be subpoenaed to testify or not,” she said earnestly. “I can’t.”

      He watched her intently. “Just tell them the truth,” he said in a low voice. “That’s all they want.”

      She flinched at his words. The truth. Yes, she could tell the truth. She bit her lip hard. “You know it’s not like that. They pick and choose. Reinvent how things appear.”

      “Faith, this is the Federal government, not some quack sheriff in a Podunk town that you’d be tangling with as if you’d gotten a traffic ticket. And if you don’t testify, it will make you look as if you’re guilty of something, which you aren’t. Refusing a subpoena is as good as putting yourself in jail.” He hit the top of his desk with the flat of his hand and the sudden sound made Faith jump. “You can’t. I won’t let you do that.”

      She wasn’t about to refuse to obey a subpoena. It wouldn’t get that far. “I won’t be subpoenaed. I’ll be gone. I told you that I’d just disappear.” And she knew they’d find her, but the time between then and now was what she could control. Until whatever indictments were secured, she couldn’t be anywhere close to anyone in the case, or in this city, or even the state.

      “I’ll deal with what I have to deal with,” she stated simply. “I’m twenty-six, all grown up, an adult, and I can do this. I will do this if I have to.” He’d done so much for her all of her life. He’d loved her and cared for her as a single parent, encouraged her to go to college when he realized she had his knack for figures and planning. With her newly minted MBA degree, he’d paved the way for her to join his firm, work her way up, and become an associate with her own office and list of clients she advised.

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