He's trying to get ahead of the board disclosure by establishing you as a bad actor, someone who targeted a vendor for personal reasons, and who now has HR exposure. If that complaint lands before the board meeting, it creates a parallel narrative, a pause. When's the board meeting? Monday morning. Marcus said 9:00 a.m. The complaint won't be processed before Monday.
Hartwell said HR doesn't move that fast on a Friday afternoon filing. And Fitch's attorney knows that this isn't about the HR process. It's about the rumor. He wants your name associated with a complaint before you walk into anything official. How do I handle it?
You don't. She said, "You go to the board meeting Monday. You answer questions if you're asked, and you let your documentation speak. Do not respond to the HR filing directly. Do not contact anyone at Fitch's attorney's office.
And do not, under any circumstances, contact Fitch." Understood, he said. Marcus, her voice shifted slightly. Is there anything in the hostile work environment framing that has any surface to stick to? Any interaction with Fitch or anyone connected to him that could be characterized differently in isolation. He thought about the recorded call, about Fitch's voice, the things he'd said, the way the conversation had gone.
The only direct interaction I had with Fitch was a call he initiated to myself from a blocked number. I recorded it. He made statements that are on that recording. If he's characterizing that as hostile, he's going to have a problem when the recording comes out. Artwell was quiet for 2 seconds.
He doesn't know you recorded it. No. Good. She said, "Keep it that way until Monday. That recording is the last card, and it plays best when he least expects it." A pause.
Get some sleep. Monday's going to be long. He slept. Not well, but enough. Sunday morning, he drove back to LA, checked back into the $68 motel, and spent the afternoon doing the thing he was worst at, which was waiting without working.
He read half a book he'd been carrying in his bag for two months. He walked four blocks to a Takaria and ate something that wasn't from a gas station because Dana had told him to. He sat on the edge of the motel bed and thought about Monday. At 700 p.m. Diane called, "My ex called me an hour ago." She said, "He got Hartwell's letter this morning. What did he say?" He said Fitch told him the whole Cambria situation was a setup.
That I'd hired someone with a personal grudge against the contractor group to manufacture a vendor complaint that I was using governance process to push out a legitimate investor. A pause. He used the words malicious targeting. That's the same language as the HR complaint. Marcus said yes.
She said it's coordinated. They worked out the framing together. Did your ex believe it? A silence longer than usual. He wants to Diane said it's easier for him if I'm the one doing something wrong.
She said it without self-pity. The way she said most things like a fact she'd already processed and filed. He's going to push for the board meeting to be delayed pending HR review of the complaint against you. Can he do that? He can request it.
He doesn't have the votes for it. A pause. Probably. Probably. Marcus repeated.
Three board members are genuinely neutral. One is mine. Two are his. The chair is the chair will follow the majority. She exhaled.
I need the neutral three to see the documentation before my ex's framing takes hold. I'm sending them Hartwell's materials tonight. Is that inside protocol? Hartwell approved it. She said premeating distribution to independent directors is standard for governance disclosures.
My ex will complain. That's fine. Marcus was quiet for a moment. He was thinking about the recorded call and when to use it and how much to tell Diane about it now. He told her.
I've had the recording since the Friday he called. He said, "I didn't send it to Hartwell yet because I wanted to understand the full shape of the situation before I played it." A beat. He's on record acknowledging knowledge of Pacific Ridg's bid details. Marcus said in a call he initiated to my cell from a blocked number. "The knowledge he demonstrates in that call is specific enough that it implies direct access to confidential bid documentation, which means someone inside the company gave him the numbers," Diane said.
Yes. She was quiet for a long moment. That's not just a vendor fraud problem, she said. That's an insider disclosure problem. Yes.
He said, "If you present that recording at the board meeting, the question of who gave him the bid numbers has to be answered," Marcus said. "Which means the neutral board members have to want to ask it, which means they have to see the recording before my ex's framing settles. Send it to Hartwell tonight," Diane said. Right now, before anything else, he sent it. Hartwell responded in 11 minutes.
This changes Monday. I'll be there in person. 8:00 a.m. He set his phone down and looked at the motel ceiling, which had the same texture as the ceiling in the Cambria side office and the same water stain placement as the one in Phoenix at the extended stay he'd lived in for 4 months after the mortgage went. He'd spent a lot of time in the past four years looking at motel ceilings, and he was tired of it in a way that went past tired into something more structural. He thought about Lily's cereal boxes sitting in the side office mini fridge.
He thought about pancakes. He thought about Diane saying his name for the first time in 6 months. He thought about none of those things because Monday was 12 hours away. He went to sleep. The board meeting was held in a conference room on the 32nd floor with a view of the city that was designed to remind everyone present of the scale of what they were discussing.
Eight people around the table, six board members, Hartwell and Diane. Marcus was in the anti- room outside with a laptop and his full file available to be called in. He was called in at 9:47. Randall Fitch was not there in person. He had sent his attorney, a man named Gould, who wore a suit that said old money and carried a leather portfolio that said he'd done this before.