Chapter 6 - The Midnight Deposition
By 9:00 PM, the storm outside had escalated into a full-blown Minnesota blizzard. Snow piled high against the windows of Victoria Vance’s law office on the twentieth floor of the IDS Center in downtown Minneapolis.
Victoria Vance—no relation to Thomas Vance, though the irony was not lost on anyone—was a senior partner specializing in corporate intellectual property and estate fraud. Sitting across the glass conference table from me were my mother, my Uncle Mark (who had joined via video conference from Chicago), and two representatives from the Securities and Exchange Commission whom Victoria had contacted directly.
Grandpa Henry’s wooden chest sat in the center of the table, illuminated by the recessed LED spotlights above.
Victoria carefully adjusted her glasses as she reviewed the original 1974 engineering schematics pulled from the chest's hidden bottom drawer.
"This is extraordinary," Victoria said quietly, her pen hovering over the yellowed tracing paper. "Your grandfather didn't just design the auxiliary pressure release valve, Jake. He held the provisional utility patent filed six months prior to Vance Industries' corporate registration. Thomas Vance forged Henry’s signature on a quitclaim deed three weeks after Henry suffered his first stroke in 1982."
"Which means," Uncle Mark said through the video screen, "every single royalty payment Vance Industries collected on that valve design over the last forty years was obtained through grand larceny."
"Correct," Victoria confirmed. "And because Vance Industries used those patented assets as collateral for their public stock offering five years ago, the entire corporate valuation is built on fraudulent title."
The door to the conference room opened, and Victoria's junior associate stepped in, leaning down to whisper in her ear.
Victoria nodded, turning back to us. "Ethan Vance—the current Chief Executive Officer of Vance Industries and Thomas Vance’s grandson—has just arrived downstairs with his chief legal counsel. They are requesting an immediate private meeting before we file these documents with the federal district court."
My mother looked at me, her hands trembling in her lap. "Jake... are you sure you want to go through with this? This will ruin Greg. He could go to prison."
I looked down at my hands—my knuckles were calloused, stained with faint traces of pipe joint compound and engine oil from years of hard manual work.
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"Mom," I said gently, "Greg sat in that kitchen two months ago and laughed while Aunt Linda called me a failure. He watched you agree with them just to keep the peace. He didn't care about family when he thought he was at the top. He only cares now because the foundation he stole is crumbling."
I looked up at Victoria. "Bring them in."
