by Ciji Ware
“They’re all using you, you know,” he said, his voice barely audible. “Jamie’s a great guy, but he’s been under the influence of a weak father and a pretty abusive brother... and he may never have the guts to break away. He’s wanting you to shore him up, even when there’s not much in it for you. Except money, I guess.”
Even though Juliet knew that Finn’s brutal assessment was mostly accurate, she felt thrown totally off balance by his last remark that struck her as one below the belt.
“You may find this hard to believe,” she replied, cut to the core by the implications of his last words, “but my going home is not about the money!” She’d never told him about her plans to donate a significant portion of her profits—once she got them—to nonprofit organizations she believed in, but still, Finn should know her better, by now. Her flying home was not about her portfolio. “Look,” she pleaded, “you’ve lived all over the world, never really even having a place to call your hometown. I’ve lived in San Francisco in my family’s hotel my entire life, and so have generations of Thayers that came before me. I can’t just leave it to the fates of a bunch of Silicon Valley predators, Finn. Don’t you understand at all what I’m feeling? I want to fight to hold on to the Bay View for myself, yes, but just as much as for my family.”
“But what about your art? Your decision to become a serious painter.”
“I haven’t any less burning desire for all that,” she protested, “but, surely, it can wait a week or two? What’s going on at home can’t. I’ll come back to France as soon as this is settled, one way or the other.”
“Maybe you won’t,” he challenged, with a distant, closed air. “Maybe you’ll discover there’s more to keep you there than bring you back.”
“Finn! That’s not going to happen!” she cried, unable to keep the exasperation from her voice. “I want to be here. With you. Believe me, I’ll be on the first plane to Paris once Jamie, the lawyers, and I see if there’s a way to keep my dad from losing everything he’s worked his entire life for!”
“You sound very convincing, so I guess we’d better put your suitcase into the car and get the hell out of here,” he said with studied politeness, as if they were mere, casual acquaintances.
“I guess we’d better,” she murmured, her heart sore as she rose from her chair. She glanced out the window at the lake where she’d never even dipped a toe, and headed upstairs to their room to retrieve her luggage.
* * *
“On top of everything,” Jamie complained as they headed out of San Francisco airport close to midnight and drove up Highway 101 toward the city, “Brad hired a new head attorney, even before he learned about a second takeover. The guy’s as much of a self-satisfied jerk as Brad, and won’t give Dad or me the time of day.”
“Where’d Brad find him? Some Stanford crony, no doubt.”
“A fraternity brother, of course. Gavin, somebody. I don’t know the guy.”
Why does that name sound vaguely familiar? She shook her head and stared through the windshield.
Jamie warned, “And I hope you’ve girded yourself for the big family powwow at lunchtime tomorrow.”
“Oh, I’m ready, all right.” She suddenly remembered where she’d heard the name ‘Gavin.’ “And, by the way, I smell a great, big rat in all of this!”
* * *
“Gavin Linley’s m’man,” Brad announced smugly when his siblings and parents were gathered around the table in their small family dining room. “He’s a total ace in fighting the VCs in these predatory takeover bids. He’d won three in a row before I got him to come over to us to help beat down this thing.”
“Where did you find this paragon?” Juliet asked, wanting to confirm her suspicions.
Brad shot her a glare. “Stanford buddy, what else? Only the best.” He turned to his father. “Look, Dad, Gavin says you can’t put it off any longer. He’s going to need you to sign the paperwork to increase the equity loan. He’s also lined up some other deep pockets, and we may need to let one of them take over your board seat.”
Even Mildred Thayer looked surprised at this announcement. Brad senior frowned and shook his head. “You’re asking us for more money and you want me off the board?”
“That’s only a possibility,” Brad hastened to assure him. “We just have to be prepared for all eventualities. It’s all for a good cause, of course... holding on to what we have.”
“What you have,” their father commented with an unexpected show of displeasure.
Juliet was amazed to hear Jamie speak up before she could even open her mouth. “Don’t do it, Dad! Don’t sign anything!”
“Shut up!” Brad snapped. “You’re small fry in all of this, as usual, and you’d better back off if you don’t want to lose every nickel in time and treasure you’ve invested in this family enterprise of ours. Just let me take care of things.”
Juliet looked over at her father, who was now staring at his untouched plate of food. She stood up and threw her napkin on the table. “I’m begging you, Dad,” she pleaded, worried that his show of pique wouldn’t last very long if their mother started to work on him, along with Brad. “Jamie’s right. Don’t sign anything! We four need independent legal counsel and I’m going to get it!”
“Juliet!” warned her mother. “Don’t make things any worse than they already are. Let Brad handle this.”
“Which Brad?” she demanded. “The one who owns this hotel, or the one who doesn’t give a damn about it?” And before anyone could say anything else, she stormed out of the room, raced down the hallway, and used a master key everyone in the family possessed to let herself into Brad’s hotel suite.
Once inside his rooms, Juliet remembered exactly where her brother kept his Stanford yearbooks in a prominent place in a wall of bookshelves at the far end of his small sitting room. She flipped to the index of the one for his senior year and searched.
“Linley... . Linley... Gavin Linley,” she muttered. “Bingo!”
She flipped to the pages next to Gavin Linley’s name, and sure enough, he had been a fraternity brother and also a member of Brad’s college squash and track teams. Under Gavin’s Stanford senior picture were the words, “Life’s Ambition: Killer Lawyer.” He had also been the young Turk who’d looked her up and down on both her visits to Adelman and Marx, Attorneys-at-Law. Jamie had not been on the receiving end of that blatant Male Gaze and so hadn’t even noticed the guy as they were leaving.
She tucked the yearbook under her arm and closed the gap among the remaining three yearbooks, praying Brad wouldn’t notice the one now missing from his shelf. Thirty seconds later she was out the door and scurrying down the hallway to her own suite of rooms. As soon as she entered the sanctuary of her own bedroom, she called Finn’s mobile phone and let it ring until it went to voice mail, leaving a short message that she’d made it home safely—and that she missed him terribly. A few minutes later, she also sent him a text with a similar sentiment, and then punched in the number of Edward Adelman.
That afternoon, with Brad’s yearbook stowed out of sight in her tote bag, Juliet set off down the hotel’s fifth floor corridor to meet Jamie in the basement garage for the appointment she’d just scheduled at Adelman and Marx. When the elevator doors opened on her floor, she found herself face to face with her older brother, who apparently was headed to his room. He stepped out, blocking her path, and let the doors close behind him.
“You really upset Mom and Dad, you know, storming out like that.”
Juliet pushed the button to summon the next elevator. “So tell me,” she said, ignoring his comment, “what made you think of hiring Gavin Linley away from the law firm that already represented Jamie and me.”
“What makes you think that’s true?”
“Because it is and you know it.”
“And how was I supposed to know you’d sneak behind my back like that?”
“Even if you didn’t know—and I suspect you did very early on—Gavin Linley now has a very big
problem called ‘conflict of interest’—or doesn’t Stanford Business or the Law School teach that anymore?”
“What are you talking about? Gavin probably hasn’t a clue who you are and I’m sure he didn’t know you were a client at Adelman and Marx.”
“How did you know that was the firm I went to see?” she said, her eyes narrowing.
Brad shifted his glance to the wall behind her. “I—Jamie told me, I think, when I finally pried it out of him what you were up to after I fired your ass and you lost your stock options. I figured you’d go to see if you could sue me for wrongful termination or some shit like that.”
“Jamie didn’t tell you a thing,” she said in a low voice. “I went to see a lawyer long before you canned me. You found out from your buddy, Gavin, that I’d hired the senior partner in his old firm—and probably why I was there. The question is—how much did he know of my business there?”
Just then, the down elevator pinged and the solid brass doors opened revealing a well-dressed matron holding a beautifully groomed tri-color Cavalier King Charles Spaniel in her arms.
“Where are you going?” Brad demanded of Juliet.
“Down in this elevator with this adorable dog.” She smiled sweetly at the guest as she entered the car. “Lovely to see you again at the Bay View, Ms. Streisand.”
Without responding to her brother, she punched the elevator button for the floor below in order to make a short visit to her parents’ rooms before she rendezvoused with Jamie in the garage. The elevator closed and then soon opened again and Juliet strode down the hallway.
“Oh, honey...” her father began as soon as she entered the room, but before he could say anything further, her mother overrode his next words.
“Well, you made a fine spectacle of yourself at lunch.”
“With good reason,” Juliet countered. “Look at this!” She pulled out the Stanford yearbook and pointed to a guy in the line-up of the track team standing three members down from a college-aged Bradshaw Thayer.
“That’s Gavin Linley. He worked at the law firm Jamie and I consulted a few months back before the first takeover threat. Linley saw me there, so he knew—or made it his business to find out—what Jamie and I were there for at his old firm. If he revealed to Brad that we’d consulted his boss, Adelman, and what we’d consulted him about, it would be a major conflict-of-interest to come work for this company.”
“They’re a big firm, with hundreds of clients,” protested her mother. “How would Gavin Linley have any knowledge why you were seeking counsel at that firm—or even that you were? You could have been getting a Will done, or something totally unrelated. I don’t see his coming to work for Brad as any big conflict.”
“He saw me there,” Juliet asserted. “Gave me the once over. I got the feeling he knew who I was and, by the way, he was very chummy with my lawyer. Asked him to play squash with him that coming weekend.”
“That proves absolutely nothing. You are just stirring the pot, Juliet, because you’re still resentful about Brad’s firing you.”
Juliet saw that the leopard’s spots were right where they’d always been.
“His firing me was the best thing that happened to me all year!” she shot back. “I’m just trying to find out what is actually going on around here, Mother, and hoping you and Dad won’t lose everything you own in the process!”
She saw by her mother’s tightly clasped hands that, despite her automatic defense of her eldest son, Mildred Thayer was worried. Juliet sought her father’s glance. “Dad, I want you to come with me to Adelman and Marx, even if Mother won’t. At least, let’s find out if there’s been any conflict of interest that could jeopardize all our futures—but especially yours and the hotel. Don’t you get it? The guy who used to work at Adelman and Marx is the very lawyer working for Brad who is pressuring you to sign away every last bit of equity you have in this place! Gavin Linley probably now knows the strengths and weaknesses of Jamie and my wanting to get what’s owed all of us if there is a change of control of GatherGames. Gavin can use that insider’s knowledge to Brad’s advantage, not ours, if—or when—the takeover happens.”
Mildred addressed her husband: “Brad Junior wouldn’t do anything like that! I’m telling you, Juliet, you’re just stirring up more trouble when we’ve got plenty already.”
Her father said in his usual appeasing tone, “Your mother may be right about Gavin Linley’s working for Brad not being an issue of conflict-of-interest. For certain, San Francisco is a tiny town where everybody knows everybody, but Brad hiring Gavin could be perfectly innocent. And even if Linley did know who you were that time when he saw you at their office, I’m sure he didn’t have access to your lawyer’s files—”
“We don’t know any of that!” Juliet said with frustration. “What if he found a way to see whatever he wanted to before he left that firm?”
“That’s sheer speculation and slanderous to Gavin Linley,” Mildred retorted.
“Well, I’m not so sure it’s speculation, but I damned well am going to find out!” She turned on her heel and left her parents’ suite without further argument, more certain than anything in her life that Gavin Linley had egregiously violated moral ethics by telling Brad she’d consulted one of the partners at his old law firm—and maybe why she was there.
But was it a breach of legal ethics? What if Gavin was engineering her father’s removal from the Board of Directors to give her brother a stronger hand to protect his own, selfish interests in a second takeover fight?
Less than an hour later, Juliet and Jamie took seats opposite Edward Adelman at his highly polished desk. Juliet inhaled deeply and began, “As you know, your former colleague, Gavin Linley, has joined GatherGames as chief counsel, hired by my brother.”
Edward Adelman’s features were expressionless and he merely nodded. Her look to Jamie telegraphed, he knew! In some ways, San Francisco was, as her father said, a truly tiny town, and she groaned inwardly.
“Did you or anyone in this firm identify Jamie or me as siblings of Bradshaw Thayer the Fourth, or reveal that we were your clients and were here to get legal advice on how to protect our interests against our brother’s greed?”
“Of course I never discussed with Gavin Linley why you and Jamie had come to see me!” he said, clearly offended by such a notion.
“Well, if you or anyone else in your firm did,” Juliet replied, coolly, “that’s what lit the match as far as my elder brother is concerned and got me fired, along with causing me to lose my valuable stock options.
By this point, Juliet didn’t give a fig about her options, but she wanted to make Adelman plenty worried that Linley’s actions had “grievously harmed her” financially.
“Even worse,” she continued, “now that Linley is Brad’s official counsel, the rest of the Thayer family stands to get screwed in this new takeover fight. I’m sure that Linley has been behind Brad’s move to make everyone sign an agreement not to sell their stock unless Brad says they can.” Her gaze narrowed as she looked at the man she’d originally hired to represent Jamie and her. “And now Linley is urging my father to increase his equity loan against the hotel and surrender his seat on GG’s Board of Directors to someone Bard has picked!”
Juliet could tell that Adelman recognized these were serious charges of ethical violations against him and his firm.
“I repeat,” he said in an even tone, “I never disclosed anything about you and your brother Jamie consulting me.”
“And can you vouch that no one else in this firm did?”
Adelman hesitated. His next words shocked both Jamie and her. “I’m afraid I cannot. Gavin didn’t tell the partners of this firm, including me, he was being hired away by GatherGames. He just said he needed a break from the grind and was quitting to think over what he wanted to do next.”
Jamie jumped into the conversation. “Well, he must have taken all of five minutes to ‘think it over’ because he came on as our new general counsel only a week or
so after Brad fired Juliet, a move that then disqualified her from exercising the options to buy more stock at a lower price somewhere down the road.” He glared at Adelman. “This, of course, put even more stock options under Brad’s sole control.”
Adelman raised his fingers and pinched the flesh between his eyes. “I reiterate, I had no idea Gavin was such a loose cannon. He’s about ten years younger than I am, and a pretty bright guy, but this...”
“This,” Juliet filled in for him, “puts Adelman and Marx under threat of a major lawsuit from Jamie and me–or at the very least—severe disciplinary action if we file a complaint with the California Bar Association against you.”
“Hold on a minute! My firm has my name on the door and I promise you, I will get to the bottom of this. In fact, there’s someone on staff I’d like to speak with. Can you wait a few moments?”
“Off the clock?” Juliet demanded.
“You won’t be charged,” Adelman replied, tight-lipped.
Mystified by the attorney’s abrupt departure, Jamie and Juliet sat silently in their luxurious leather chairs until the man reappeared with a younger man in pale pink shirtsleeves who was introduced as Roland Miller.
“Roland is a recent hire who had the office next to Gavin Linley’s until he departed the firm.” He turned to the nervous young man, who had taken a seat beside his boss, and barked, “Tell them what you just told me when I asked you if you ever overheard anything unseemly from Gavin Linley when he had the office next to yours.”
CHAPTER 30
Juliet judged that Roland Miller looked pale as the filet of sole served at Tadich’s Grill. He shifted his gaze anxiously to the pair sitting in his boss’s impressively large office. He swallowed hard before speaking. “Ah... well... the walls between some of the offices of the junior partners, here, are pretty thin, and with the divider between Gavin and mine, if either of us was speaking very loudly, the other could hear every word.”