Chapter 6 - The Split
By 2:00 p.m., the Holloway Select Markets stock had lost thirty-five percent of its value on the regional exchange.
Trading was suspended by the regulators three times in two hours, but it didn't stop the bleeding. Across the state, the local Teamsters and longshoremen's unions had declared an immediate strike at all Holloway distribution centers, their trucks blocking the loading docks in Elgin, Joliet, and Milwaukee.
I was sitting at the counter, the silence in the diner heavy and warm, when the front door opened.
It wasn't Grant, and it wasn't the police. It was Clara Holloway—Grant’s twenty-six-year-old sister. She was a quiet girl who had spent her life in art schools in New York and Paris, completely removed from the family business. She wore a simple black trench coat, her hair damp from the rain, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen.
She didn't look at me with the arrogance of her mother. She looked at Hannah, who was sitting in the back booth.
"Hannah," Clara whispered, her voice trembling as she walked toward her. "I... I didn't know. I swear to God, I didn't know what he was doing to you."
"Clara," Hannah said, standing up. "You don't have to be here. Your mother—"
"My mother is currently in her office with six lawyers and a bottle of Valium," Clara said, her chin quivering as she pulled a small, silver thumb drive from her pocket and set it on the table. "She’s trying to delete the digital logs for the Robbins Holdings account. She thinks if the servers in Chicago are wiped, the federal investigators won't be able to link the offshore transfers to her personal accounts."
"And what’s on that drive?" I asked, stepping over to the booth.
"The backup files," Clara said, looking up at me, her eyes filled with a deep, painful shame. "My father gave me the administrative keys to the corporate drive before he died. He knew what Margaret and Grant were doing, and he was terrified of going to prison. He told me to keep them safe, in case they ever tried to turn on me. I don't want their money, Evelyn. I don't want to be a part of a family that builds its life on the bones of people like you."
I took the thumb drive. It was cool, light, and carried the final, definitive nail for the coffin of the Holloway name.
May you like
"Thank you, Clara," I said.
"Tell the police to go to the Lake Forest house first," Clara whispered, pulling her coat around her. "Grant’s packing his bags. He’s got a private flight booked to Montreal at six."
