Chapter One: Before The Dust Settled
Ashes to ashes. Those words echoed in her head as her phone vibrated again, almost immediately.
Jonathan Sterling’s funeral was still on when they made their first move. It was a single notification, a market alert that showed Sterling Holdings dropping to 2.1% in pre-trading activity.
She didn't bother with it, she just stood at her father's graveside that cold morning with dark glasses that hid her eyes that had never shed a tear since the death incident. Evelyn stood with her hand folded while she watched her father's mahogany casket lowered into the ground immediately after the pastor had finished.
****************
The reception lasted longer than she had intended but she moved through it flawlessly, meeting the faces of the sympathizers with warmth and faint smiles whenever she pleased. As the car barely moved past the cemetery gates, she pulled out her phone.
Sterling Holdings was already down by 3.8%, and at least three media publications had already told the same story, citing unnamed sources and questioning whether the Sterling empire was sound enough to survive a leadership transition, all of which were already being published while her father's body was being lowered into the ground.
Before her car reached the freeway, she called her head of communications.
"I’ll be needing a press conference on the ground floor of the Wilshire building in the next two hours." She instructed, looking at her watch.
"Two hours? That's…" he stuttered. "That's very fast, Miss Sterling."
"Yes, it is." she said and ended the call.
She spent the rest of the drive preparing her statement in her head. No note or prompters. Her father had taught her long ago that the most powerful thing you could do in front of a camera was look directly into it and speak like someone who had nothing to hide and nothing to prove, even when you were doing both.
***************
The press conference lasted just eleven minutes as she made two statements she knew would make it to every publication that mattered by the six o'clock business news:
"The transfer of power at Sterling Holdings does not mean that it has been weakened. The only thing that has changed is that our enemies have become very impatient and in my experience, impatience is the first sign that someone is already losing and is going to keep losing."
With that she walked away from the podium before the follow-up hands went up. In the elevator, her assistant, Marcus, showed her his tablet.
Sterling was already recovering.
She nodded once. "I want to see every board member in the building by five o'clock. Where's Richard Coles? Get him to me, I want to see him first."
"Yes… about that, he's already waiting in your office." Marcus said.
"...already waiting? Why? How long has he been there?" She looked at him.
"Since before the press conference.
She smiled and clasped her fingers on from her skirt. Richard Coles has spent eleven years under her father's leadership on the Sterling board and the fact that he was already here meant that he either had information she needed or was about to tell her something she wasn't going to like but either way she needed to hear it.
When she walked in, he was standing by the office window, looking out at the city below.
"Richard." She called.
"Yes… please sit down, Evelyn." He said, turning to look at her with a grim expression on his face.
"Nope. I'll stand. What do you want?" She asked.
He looked at her for a moment before reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket and brought out a plain, white envelope. The handwriting in front of it was one she didn’t recognize.
"This was attached to my car’s windshield this morning," he said. "In the cemetery parking lot and I think it was sometime during the service."
She took it and saw her name on the front but didn't open it immediately but when she did, inside it was a single card of four lines, she read it twice.
The market move this morning was Paul Harrington.
The board leak was Howard Finch.
But neither of them is your real problem.
Your real problem has been inside Sterling Holdings for eleven years.
"Where were you parked?" She asked, looking up at Richard.
"On the east lot. I was one of the first to arrive so I got there before most of the family cars."
"Did you see anyone near your vehicle?"
"No. And I was watching." He paused. "That could only mean that whoever left it knew exactly which car was mine and exactly how long the service would run."
"I know what you're thinking." He said, meeting her gaze steadily.
"Do you?" She asked, looking at him.
"You're thinking I could have written it myself."
"Well… that thought also crossed my mind."
"It should have." He held her gaze without flinching. "But I'm telling you, I didn't and I understand if you can't take my word for it, that is why I'm telling you something I could have kept to myself." He paused. "If I were the leak, Evelyn, I wouldn't hand you the note. Never. I'd rather throw it away and let you find out the hard way."
"That's fine. Send in Howard Finch on your way out," she said, folding the card and tossing it on her table.
"You want me to…" Richard blinked.
"Yes .. Richard, send him in and close the door on your way out."
"***********
Howard Finch was the kind of board member who had never been capable of sustained deception, that loyal and competent board member that existed in every company. He lasted forty seconds before he started talking.
About six weeks before Jonathan Sterling's condition became critical, Paul Harrington's team had reached out to him apparently, asking questions about the structure, the transition framework and about Evelyn while deliberately trying not to ask for anything damaging.
"About me specifically," she said.
"Yes, they asked whether you were ready and how the board felt about a transition of this… this magnitude to someone your age." He continued, looking at his hands.
"Okay… so what did you tell them?"
"Howard, Did you tell them I wasn't ready?” She asked, her voice was quiet in a way that had nothing to do with calm.
"No… not… not really, I only said there were questions," he said. "That was all. I said there were questions about the pace of…"
"The attack on our market happened this morning and they did that with the weapon you handed them and while we were standing at the graveside, Paul Harrington was using your words to move our market." She smiled.
"Howard, by the end of business today, you will resign from this board. Make sure you will cite personal reasons and say nothing else to anyone."
Howard opened his mouth.
"That is not a negotiation," she said.
He closed it.
**************
By seven that evening the market had recovered as the press moved on to the next story, clearly advised by their legal teams that making false claims was an expensive joke.
Evelyn sat alone in her office in the dim light from her lamp, staring at the note on the desk in front of her with the city laid out below her.
" Your real problem has been inside Sterling Holdings for eleven years."
There were four people who fit into that timeline. Richard Coles, who had handed her the note. Howard Finch, who was resigning. Margaret Yuen, Sterling's longest-serving board member, and one other.
Her phone rang, the caller was an unknown number.
She picked up. "Evelyn Sterling."
"You handled today well." The voice was low and sounded unhurried, like the same voice from the note. She was certain of it before he finished the sentence. "...it was actually way better than I expected, because I had expected quite a lot."
"Who are you?" she said.
"Don't be scared, I'm someone who wants you to win..." The voice paused. "...and someone who knows exactly what you're walking into."
"Then tell me."
"No, not yet." After another longer pause, he continued, "There's a gala on by the Aurelian Foundation, it'll be held on Thursday evening in Beverly Hills. Be there."
"Why?"
"Because the person who has been dismantling your father's empire from the inside will be in that room." The voice dropped slightly. "And so will I. When you get there, watch who watches you." With that the line went dead.
Evelyn sat in the dark with the phone in her hand and it became crystal clear to her that the war she thought she was fighting was not the one she was actually in.
She set the phone down and picked up the note to read the last line one more time.
" Your real problem has been inside Sterling Holdings for eleven years.”
Thursday, she thought.
She would be there.
