Chapter 4
By the third morning, there was no keeping it quiet.
Two of Dalton Pharmaceuticals' three core production lines stopped because the patent licenses behind them had been revoked and the raw material contracts went with them.
The suppliers caught wind of the mess and started holding back, waiting to see who would blink first.
The bank's position was more delicate. Metro Bank didn't call the loans, and they moved Dalton Pharmaceuticals' credit rating from priority to pending.
One of the independent directors had already submitted a formal written inquiry.
James showed up at the office early and went straight into three back-to-back meetings, all just trying to put out fires.
But the more he tried to fix things, the mess just kept getting worse.
At noon, Sylvia knocked on the door before coming in.
She'd barely bothered with any makeup today, and looked even more haggard than she had the last couple of days.
"Mr. Dalton, everyone's saying there's a huge problem at Dalton, and they're blaming me," she said.
James looked up at her.
Sylvia bit her lip. "I know you've been under a lot of stress these past couple of days, but honestly, none of this is my fault.
"I've worked my heart out here for years. If you look into the procedures, you'll see everything checks out."
She really sounded like she meant it.
James didn't answer right away.
He stared at Sylvia, and suddenly, the scene from the conference room the day before flashed through his mind.
When I walked in with that brown paper bag, the first person I looked at wasn't Sylvia. It was him. And the first thing I said had nothing to do with jealousy. I asked him to verify one step in a process.
He hadn't taken in a word of it.
"Sylvia," he said, "did you ever look at the documents Vivian brought in the day before yesterday?"
Sylvia's expression flickered for a split second, but she quickly composed herself.
"No. I was sorting files when she came in, and I didn't notice what she was carrying."
James pressed on. "And the distributor rebate from last August. Did you sign off on that?"
Sylvia's smile finally faltered.
"That payment went through the proper process," Sylvia said.
"I didn't ask if it was compliant. I asked if you signed off on it," James said.
Sylvia was silent for a few seconds.
"I signed it. It's routine. We do it every year," she said.
James didn't press further.
But the look in his eyes had shifted.
Sylvia stood there, her expression gradually growing tense.
After she left, James picked up the phone and dialed a number.
He called my phone.
My phone was off.
*****
James had Susan work through the night to put together a complete list of all the authorizations.
When the list was finished, even Susan was surprised by how long it was.
The assets under my name were far more than anyone had imagined.
Seventeen core patents. Guarantees on four long-term supplier agreements. Credit endorsements at two banks. Technology licensing for three joint R&D programs.
The most important item was that close to forty percent of Dalton Pharmaceuticals' original seed money had come out of a trust account in my name.
When Susan handed the list to James, she added one line. "Mr. Dalton, if these licenses stay revoked, Dalton Pharmaceuticals can't keep operating more than two months."
James held the list, flipping through it page by page. When he reached the last page, his hand stopped.
The last page was a document from three years ago, with both my signature and his on it.
It was a rider to the prenuptial agreement we signed before the wedding. He had barely looked at it back then and signed it as a formality.
The terms were plain. I licensed my technology to Dalton Pharmaceuticals at no cost and backed the company with my own assets, and the arrangement ran only as long as the marriage did.
If I moved to end it, Dalton Pharmaceuticals had ninety days to unwind everything and hand it all back.
James set the document down and sat there, deep in thought for a long while.
Henry waited outside for half an hour before he finally stepped inside and spoke quietly, "Mr. Dalton, Mr. Grant and the others are waiting for you in the conference room."
As James stood up, his phone on the desk rang again.
It was a call from the Langley Group, and the caller sounded rushed. "Mr. Dalton, we just got a notice on our joint product program. The underlying license has been pulled. Can you tell us what's going on?"
James closed his eyes for a moment.
When he walked into the conference room, Edward and three independent directors were already sitting together, waiting for him.
No one spoke, but the look on everyone's face said the same thing.
Edward spoke first, "James, I'll ask you one thing. How do you plan to get her back?"
James stood by the table, not sitting down.
"I'll go see her," he said.
Edward shook his head. "What makes you think you can face her now? Word's already out you had her slapped twelve times. Do you really think she'll even answer your call?"
The conference room was so quiet, the only sound was the air conditioner running.
*****
That night, James didn't come to see me right away.
He did something else first.
He had Henry pull up all the project files Sylvia had handled since last January and reviewed each one in detail.
Henry and two others spent three hours going through everything.
The results were even worse than James had expected.
Four payments in Sylvia's projects didn't add up. None of them were large, and each one came in under a million dollars, and every one had been split into three or four subprojects filed under different suppliers.
Two of those suppliers were companies run by Sylvia's college classmates.
When Henry handed over the results, he opened his mouth but didn't dare say a word.
After James finished reading, he only asked, "Was this what Vivian wanted to show me that day?"
Henry nodded.
James sat there, motionless.
After a while, he told Henry to get three things ready.
A property transfer agreement, a document transferring five percent of Dalton Pharmaceuticals' shares, and a termination notice for Sylvia.
He even rehearsed his apology in advance.
He thought he was moving fast enough. He had come down this far, offering money and shares and firing Sylvia, and he assumed I would take the exit he was giving me.
Early the next morning, he checked everything one last time before heading out.
Everything was ready.
Just as he reached the entryway, his phone rang.
It was Sylvia.
There was a nervousness in her voice he'd never heard before.
"Mr. Dalton, please don't let anyone else see that document first," she said.
James frowned. "What document?"
Sylvia was silent for so long that he thought she'd hung up.
Then she finally spoke.
"That day Vivian brought the brown envelope to the conference room, it wasn't just about where the money went. There was something else in there, something about me," she said.
James stood at the door, holding his phone, frozen in place for a long moment.
"What about you?" he asked.
There was silence on the other end.