Chapter 4 - The House of Cards Collapses
Back in Chicago, the rain had returned by noon, washing over the black glass monolith of Hayes Tower like a dirty curtain.
Inside the thirty-eighth-floor executive suite, Alexander Hayes was tearing through his mahogany desk like a madman.
Corporate files, private tax returns, and architectural blueprints for his new casino resort in Macau lay scattered across the imported silk rug. His laptop screen was flashing with twenty-four separate notifications from his corporate clearinghouse bank in New York.
"What do you mean the operating lines are frozen?!" Alexander roared into his speakerphone, his face purpling, his knuckles white against the desk. "I am Alexander Hayes! We have seventy million dollars in active accounts receivable from the autumn shipping contracts!"
"Mr. Hayes," the senior vice president of Chase Commercial Credit replied, his voice chillingly bureaucratic, "those accounts receivable were pledged as secondary collateral against the master maritime transport charter held by Mercer Logistics International. Forty minutes ago, the High Court of Justice in Ontario, acting on an emergency ex-parte motion filed by the Mercer Trust, executed an international freeze order under the maritime admiralty cross-border treaty."
"On what grounds?!"
"Gross breach of corporate trust, fraudulent commingling of personal debt, and unauthorized encumbrance of trust assets," the banker stated without hesitation. "Every vessel operating under the Hayes-Mercer flag on the St. Lawrence Seaway has been detained by the Canadian Coast Guard at the Welland Canal. No cargo moves until the forty-two-million-dollar demand note is settled in certified funds."
Forty-two million dollars.
Alexander dropped the phone onto the desk. The plastic casing cracked against the mahogany.
His private office doors clicked open.
Olivia Carter walked in, her heels clicking aggressively against the parquet, wearing a tailored black dress and a camel-hair coat. Behind her walked his sister, Madison, looking pale and clutching her iPad to her chest like a shield.
"Alexander!" Olivia complained, walking straight to his desk, completely ignoring the papers on the floor. "What is going on with the accounts? I just tried to pay the balance on the catering for my gallery opening on Friday, and the platinum card declined! In front of the curator from the Art Institute!"
Alexander slowly lifted his head.
His eyes were sunken, bloodshot, and burning with a terrifying, vacant intensity that made Madison stop dead in her tracks three paces back.
"The card declined, Olivia?" Alexander asked, his voice lower than a grave.
"Yes! It was completely humiliating!" she huffed, crossing her arms. "Your assistant said there was some clerical error with the Canadian division. You need to call the bank right now and clear my line. I have sixty thousand dollars in vendor deposits due by three o'clock."
Alexander stood up from his leather chair.
He didn't look like the untouchable thirty-five-year-old king of Chicago. His hair was disheveled, his suit wrinkled, his collar open, revealing the dark, hollow hollows of his collarbones.
He reached into his breast pocket, pulled out an audio micro-cassette player, and set it on the glass desk blotter.
"Madison," Alexander whispered, not taking his eyes off Olivia. "Lock the doors."
Madison blinked, her voice trembling. "Alexander, what's wrong with you? Mom is waiting downstairs in the towncar—"
"I said lock the damn doors!" Alexander bellowed, slamming his open palm against the desk with a force that rattled the brass lamps.
Madison jumped, terror flashing across her face, and scurried to the heavy double doors, throwing the brass deadbolts into place.
Alexander hit play on the recorder.
The silence in the office was instantly pierced by the audio from Oakridge Preparatory.
"Mr. Hayes? This is Margaret Gable from Oakridge Preparatory. Dismissal ended fifteen minutes ago, and Grace is still waiting in the vestibule..."
Olivia’s posture went rigid. The color vanished from her cheeks so completely she looked like a plaster mannequin.
Then her own recorded voice echoed from the speakers:
"...Alexander instructed our private security chauffeur, Donald, to pick Grace up... Just have Grace wait on the covered bench beside the circular drive... Don't make a production out of this... Have the girl wait outside."
The recording clicked off.
Alexander didn't shout. He didn't throw another paper. He walked around the desk with slow, deliberate, predatory steps, stopping six inches from Olivia Carter.
"You answered my private phone," Alexander whispered.
Olivia swallowed hard, her manicured hand flying to her throat, her chest heaving. "Alexander... listen to me. It was an accident. The music was loud at the party, and people kept coming up to toast us... I thought Donald was five minutes away! I swear to God, I thought he was around the corner!"
"You sent Donald to 18th Street," Alexander said, his voice dropping an octave, cold as dry ice. "To pick up a cake."
"A cake for your party!" Olivia shrieked, tears of pure, desperate self-preservation spilling over her mascara. "The party your sister planned! Madison was the one who told me we needed the ice sculpture! Tell him, Madison!"
Madison backed against the locked doors, her hands shaking, her mouth opening and closing like a dying fish. "Alexander... I... we didn't know the storm was going to hit! The weather forecast said scattered showers! How could we know a truck was going to hit the portico?!"
"Grace waited for forty-five minutes," Alexander said, his words breaking down the middle, a ragged, choking sob tearing through his ribs. "She was four years old. She had her little yellow coat on. She sat on that concrete bench in the freezing rain, watching the road, waiting for her daddy."
He stepped closer to Olivia, his face inches from hers.
"And while she was being crushed beneath two tons of red brick," Alexander snarled, "you were drinking fifty-dollar champagne and telling my sister that we looked perfect together."
"Alexander, please!" Olivia wept, dropping to her knees on the rug, grabbing at the fabric of his trousers. "I love you! I’ve loved you since we were eighteen! Emily was nobody! She was a quiet, boring little shadow who didn't fit into your world! I did it for us! I wanted you to be free!"
Alexander looked down at her with an expression of such pure, unadulterated disgust that it seemed to burn the air between them.
He pulled his leg back, dislodging her hands as if she were a roach crawling across his shoes.
"Get out," Alexander whispered.
"Alexander—"
"Get out of my office, get out of my building, and pray to whatever god you believe in that Emily doesn't hand that recording to the Cook County State's Attorney," Alexander said, turning his back on them completely. "Because if she does... I will testify against you myself."
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The office doors unlocked with a frantic rattle.
Madison dragged the sobbing, hysterical blonde out into the reception hallway, leaving Alexander Hayes standing alone in the center of his shattered kingdom, while the rain outside washed against the glass like a long, relentless funeral shroud.
