Chapter 9
The independent committee found the document Evelyn had described.
The original Lucinda-to-Preston voting proxy was stored with Hale Heritage’s corporate secretary.
It granted Preston authority over Lucinda’s twenty-two-percent voting block for five years.
What nobody had focused on was the attached side letter.
It was dated the same morning.
Lucinda agreed not to revoke the proxy without Preston’s written consent.
In return, Preston agreed to “personally assume responsibility for resolution of the Westbridge matter and associated family exposure.”
That phrase was bizarre.
Corporate counsel had questioned it at the time.
Preston instructed him to remove the phrase from future summaries.
Then investigators found the lawyer’s handwritten notes.
P says personal family problem tied to L. Refuses detail. L crying.
A second note:
Asked whether duress. L says no. P answers for her twice.
The lawyer had advised Lucinda to obtain separate counsel.
She declined.
Then came the renewals.
The original proxy should have expired after five years.
Westbridge was only four years and nine months old.
Why had there already been two extension documents?
Because Preston amended the agreement early.
The first amendment expanded his control over merger and executive-appointment votes.
The second gave him consent rights over Lucinda’s sale of her shares.
Neither document mentioned Westbridge.
But Preston’s private emails did.
When Lucinda objected to the second amendment:
You don’t get to separate the company from the thing that made this arrangement necessary.
Lucinda:
You said five years.
Preston:
I said I would keep you safe as long as you didn’t make me regret it.
Then:
You know what happens if Thomas’s family learns who was in that car.
That was not merely sibling loyalty.
It looked like coercion.
The committee’s forensic accountants also found Preston’s compensation rose sharply after he gained Lucinda’s votes.
Some increases had independent board approval.
Others came from decisions he effectively controlled.
Nothing proved theft by itself.
The more consequential finding was governance.
Preston had built his corporate authority on a voting agreement that may have been signed under threat of criminal exposure.
Then police received one final item from Evelyn’s letter.
Page six had been folded inward and stuck against the back of the envelope by old adhesive. Conservators separated it without tearing the paper.
The first line read:
I have spent four years letting everyone believe Preston was protecting his sister. That is not what he was doing.
May you like
Elisa stared at the sentence.
The investigation was about to turn again.
