The Love I Paid For
Keeping Whitman & Associates on artificial life support, not to save it —
to control exactly when, and how publicly, it would fall.
Her phone buzzed. Marcus.
"Claire, thank God." He sounded wrecked, like he hadn't slept. "I've been going through the old vendor files all night, ever since the story broke, and I found something I should have flagged years ago, I just — I didn't understand what I was looking at until tonight."
"Harcourt Strategic Partners," she said quietly. "You found the loans."
A long silence. "How do you already—"