Chapter 7: Crawford's Last Stand
Emmett Durham was behind bars in a federal holding cell, but four hundred million dollars in corporate assets still had plenty of loyal defenders.
At seven o'clock on Tuesday evening, three days before Rosalie’s thirtieth birthday, an emergency injunction appeared on the docket of the State Supreme Court. Emmett’s lead counsel, Crawford, had bypassed Hennepin County entirely, filing a motion on behalf of the Durham Timber Board of Directors to suspend the trust reversion.
Their argument was viciously familiar: they claimed Rosalie was mentally incompetent to assume control of the family's raw resource rights, and that her marriage to Manuel Nelson was a fraudulent transaction engineered by a disgraced family to seize corporate capital.
"They've subpoenaed the clinic records from 2014," Arthur Vance warned, spreading the legal filings across the mahogany table in Manuel’s temporary downtown war room. "Crawford found a judge in Saint Cloud who owes Emmett his bench. If we don't quash this before Friday midnight, the trust goes into independent receivership for three years."
Manuel looked at Rosalie. She was sitting quietly by the window, her thin hair pinned back neatly, watching the city lights flicker to life.
"Let them bring the records," she said.
Arthur frowned over his spectacles. "Rosalie, those records contain fabricated psychiatric evaluations signed by three licensed physicians. A conservative judge will look at the seals, not the truth."
"Then we don't argue with the seals," Rosalie replied, turning to face them. "We bring the man who paid for them."
She reached into her briefcase and laid a secondary manila envelope on top of Crawford's injunction. It was a certified copy of the Swiss maritime insurance disbursement from Box 412.
"Dr. Griese—the chief psychiatrist who signed my commitment papers—received a four-hundred-thousand-dollar 'consulting fee' from an offshore shell company the week after he locked me in the north wing," Rosalie explained. "That shell company is owned by Crawford's law firm."
May you like
Manuel’s eyes lit up with cold, calculated realization. "It wasn't just a medical cover-up. Crawford’s firm was laundering the embezzlement profits through the psychiatric clinic."
"Exactly," Rosalie said, a cool, unshakeable authority radiating from her voice. "We don't wait for the court hearing on Friday. We take this to the emergency board meeting tomorrow morning—and we let Crawford explain to his shareholders why he's using company funds to bribe doctors."
