Chapter 8 - Blood and Business
Evelyn arrived Thursday morning wearing pearls and anger.
At sixty-seven, she still carried herself like the eldest Whitaker child who had spent a lifetime reminding everyone she had been born first.
She walked directly past the hostess stand and into Thomas’s office.
Claire was already there.
Evelyn stopped.
“You.”
Claire did not look up from her laptop.
“Aunt Evelyn.”
“You’ve caused enough damage.”
Claire finally raised her eyes.
“I’ve been here four days.”
“Exactly.”
Thomas closed the office door.
“Sit down.”
“I’m not one of your employees.”
“No. You own twenty percent of the operating company, which is why you’re here.”
Evelyn sat.
Thomas remained standing.
“How much did you know about Grant’s cash payments?”
She folded her hands.
“He told me he was reducing labor waste.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“He said people were taking advantage.”
“Who?”
“Temporary workers. Part-timers.”
“Eli?”
Evelyn’s expression shifted.
“I don’t know that boy.”
“Man.”
“What?”
“Eli is twenty-eight.”
Evelyn exhaled impatiently.
“Fine. That man.”
Claire closed the laptop.
“Aunt Evelyn, did Grant tell you he was paying people less than agreed?”
“No.”
“Did he tell you he was altering hours?”
“No.”
“Did he tell you he was using Baird Facilities?”
For the first time, Evelyn lost control of her face.
Thomas saw it.
“So you know Baird.”
Evelyn looked at Claire.
“Who told you about that?”
“The records.”
Evelyn’s gaze moved toward Thomas.
“It’s legitimate.”
“What is?”
“Baird.”
“What did they do?”
“Consulting.”
Claire turned the laptop around.
“The invoices say plumbing.”
Evelyn said nothing.
“Roofing.”
Silence.
“Refrigeration.”
Evelyn’s mouth tightened.
Thomas felt sick.
“Tell me.”
She looked at her brother.
“Grant was exploring options.”
“For what?”
“The property.”
Thomas’s chair scraped against the floor as he stepped back.
“You let him negotiate a sale?”
“I let him gather information.”
“You don’t have authority.”
“I own part of the business.”
“Not the real estate.”
Their father had structured things carefully.
Whitaker Family Restaurant LLC operated the restaurant.
The building itself belonged to a separate property company controlled sixty percent by Thomas, forty percent by Evelyn.
A sale required both signatures.
Evelyn leaned forward.
“And that arrangement has trapped millions of dollars inside a dying restaurant.”
Claire spoke.
“The restaurant may not be dying.”
Evelyn looked at her.
“The reports say otherwise.”
“Reports prepared by Grant.”
“He manages the place.”
“And may have been falsifying expenses.”
Evelyn laughed once.
“Ridiculous.”
Claire rotated the screen.
“Sixty-two thousand dollars to Baird.”
Evelyn’s face tightened.
“What does that prove?”
“Right now? That invoices don’t match the services.”
Thomas asked, “Is Caleb Baird working for Hartwell Development?”
Evelyn did not answer.
Thomas felt his chest tighten.
“Evelyn.”
“Yes.”
The word barely came out.
Thomas stepped away from the desk.
“You knew.”
“I knew he had connections.”
“You knew Grant was paying him.”
“Grant said consulting had to be disguised because Hartwell couldn’t formally engage while negotiations were preliminary.”
Claire stared at her.
“And that sounded legal to you?”
“I’m not a lawyer.”
“No. But you can read.”
“Don’t talk to me that way.”
Thomas raised a hand.
Both women stopped.
He looked at Evelyn.
“Why?”
She stared back.
“Because I am seventy next year.”
“You’re sixty-seven.”
“That is not the point.”
Her voice shook now.
“I have spent forty-five years owning part of something that never pays what the land is worth. Dad left us a restaurant because he was sentimental. You turned sentimentality into religion.”
Thomas’s face hardened.
“Our parents built this.”
“Our parents are dead.”
Claire looked down.
Thomas absorbed the cruelty without moving.
Evelyn continued.
“Hartwell offered four point eight million dollars for the property.”
Thomas already knew.
“I said no.”
“You didn’t even negotiate.”
“I don’t want to sell.”
“And because you hold sixty percent, apparently what I want doesn’t matter.”
“It matters. It doesn’t decide.”
Her eyes flashed.
“So Grant found another way.”
Claire looked up sharply.
Thomas whispered, “What does that mean?”
Evelyn realized too late.
“Nothing.”
Thomas stepped closer.
“What other way?”
“I misspoke.”
“No.”
Claire watched her aunt.
“Did Grant tell you that if the restaurant looked financially unsustainable, Dad might agree to sell?”
Evelyn stood.
“This conversation is over.”
Thomas did not move.
Evelyn reached the door.
Claire said, “Hartwell didn’t just offer to buy the building, did they?”
Evelyn stopped.
Claire had no evidence yet.
Only instinct.
But Evelyn’s shoulders became rigid.
Claire continued.
“They offered you something personally.”
Evelyn turned.
“That is an outrageous accusation.”
Claire studied her.
“I didn’t accuse you of anything.”
Evelyn’s face went pale.
Thomas saw it.
And suddenly the family argument was no longer about a restaurant.
May you like
It was about a price.
The question was whose price.
