Chapter 9
The historical royalty review threatened Marciano’s credibility.
Thomas Pierce’s contracts had been signed before Elisa was born.
Their father, Vincent D’Angelo, ran the company then.
Marciano had been in his twenties and handled security and distribution, not author accounting.
Still, the D’Angelo name was on every agreement.
Beth Carver’s old analysis claimed Thomas had been underpaid on foreign editions and paperback reissues.
If true, Dorothea’s resentment had a legitimate foundation.
Rebecca brought in an outside publishing-royalty specialist.
No one from the family would conduct the historical review.
That decision frustrated Marciano.
It also protected everyone.
The first findings were uncomfortable.
Thomas had indeed been underpaid.
Not nine hundred thousand dollars.
Not even close.
But roughly one hundred forty thousand in old royalties appeared to have been missed across years of messy subsidiary-rights accounting.
Mostly before systems became digital.
“There’s no evidence your father ordered it,” the specialist explained.
Marciano’s jaw tightened.
“But the money was owed.”
“Yes.”
Elisa looked at him.
“What are we going to do?”
“Pay it.”
“With interest?”
Marciano looked at the specialist.
“What’s fair?”
That answer would take work.
Dorothea should have pursued the money legally.
But she had not invented the entire grievance.
That complication mattered.
Then the investigation moved to Elisa’s approvals.
Several Marlowe agreements contained her electronic sign-off as a family shareholder and board observer.
Elisa denied approving them.
The system logs showed the authorizations came from the Westchester house.
Harlan’s attorney seized on that.
His written response argued that Elisa had known about Marlowe and was rewriting history because of the affair.
For the first time, the evidence appeared to support him.
Elisa stared at the logs.
“I never approved these.”
Rebecca asked:
“Did anyone else use your laptop?”
“Harlan sometimes.”
“Password?”
“He knew it.”
“Dorothea?”
“No.”
Elisa stopped.
Dorothea had used her computer occasionally.
Ordering gifts.
Checking airline schedules.
Printing recipes.
Elisa had saved passwords in the browser.
Marciano swore under his breath.
Elisa looked at him.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t decide what happened before we know.”
The sentence came from everything she had learned over the past month.
Rebecca arranged a forensic examination of the laptop’s old backup data.
The first result made the situation worse.
Some approvals occurred while Harlan was physically in Manhattan.
Meredith was at the office.
Elisa herself had been at a pediatric appointment with Luca.
May you like
Only one adult family member was documented inside the Westchester house at those times.
Dorothea.
