Page 41 of Jethro

It named her as his agent with full authority over his business interests, his securities, and his corporate offices. But it was a springing power. It slept until a licensed physician certified, in writing, that Carter Langley was no longer capable of managing his own affairs.

Missy had read every word of it, twice. Then she had made an appointment with Alden Pryce.

"A certification of incapacity is a serious thing, Missy," the doctor said. He sat behind his desk in the office on St. Charles Avenue with his hands flat on the blotter, as if to keep them from doing something on their own. "It strips a man of his rights. There are evaluations. Cognitive testing. A second opinion is customary."

"So is a malpractice suit, Alden." She smoothed her skirt. "So is a board inquiry into all those prescriptions you've written for Judge Arceneaux's son. He's on his third rehab now, isn't he? Poor boy. His mother thinks he's been buying them on the street." She tilted her head.

"I could set her straight. We're on the Garden Club committee together."

The doctor's face went the color of old newspaper. After a long moment, he pulled his letterhead toward him and uncapped his pen.

"What would you like it to say?"

"Cognitive decline. Confusion. Whatever sounds permanent." She watched him write. "Two originals, please. One for the firm and one for the bank. And date them last Friday."

On the drive home, the letters lay on the passenger seat beside her in a manila envelope, and Missy found herself smiling at red lights. Not so many weeks ago Carter had threatened to have their daughter declared mentally incapable. It seemed only fitting that the words should come home to roost in his own bed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Langley Capital Partners occupied the thirty-first floor of a glass tower on Poydras Street, with a view of the river bending around Algiers Point like a brown arm curled around the city. Carter's father founded the firm in 1979 with three clients and a borrowed desk.

It still managed a little over three hundred and forty million dollars, most of it old New Orleans money: widows' trusts, family foundations, the endowment of a girls' school uptown, and the pension plan of a shipyard in Harvey. It was not glamorous money. It was loyal money, which was better, because loyal money did not read its mail very carefully.

Neil Ashby, the firm's chief operating officer, met her at the elevator. He was fifty-two, thin and careful, a man who wore a cardigan under his suit jacket and kept a bottle of antacid in every drawer. He read the power of attorney and Dr. Pryce's letter standing up in Carter's corner office, and by the time he reached the last page his face had lost its color.

"Mrs. Langley, I had no idea he was this ill. He was here two weeks ago, sharp as ever."

"These things come on quickly at his age." Missy settled into her husband's leather chair as if it had always been hers. "Which is why we're selling the firm, Neil. Before the clients hear Carter is unwell and start walking out the door on their own."

"Selling?" Neil sat down hard on the arm of the visitor's chair. "You can't sell an advisory firm like a used car. Every client contract has an assignment clause. They have to consent. There's compliance, regulatory filings, a fairness review, our custodians..."

"Which is exactly why I have you, Neil." She pressed the intercom. "Denise, would you send Mr. Vance in, please?"

Preston Vance of Vance Meridian Wealth had flown in from Houston that morning on his own plane. He was tanned and silver-haired, with very white teeth, and he had made a career out of buying regional firms whose founders had grown old or careless.

He bought their client books, fired their staff, and quietly moved grandmothers out of plain index funds and into high-fee products that paid him coming and going. In the industry they called him the Undertaker, though never to his face. He shook Neil's hand like a man testing the ripeness of fruit.

"Eleven million," Vance said, before he had finished sitting down. "Four at closing. Seven on an earn-out over three years, tied to client retention."

Neil knew what an earn-out from Preston Vance was worth. Every client who left after the purchase would be subtracted from the payment, and with Vance's fees, every client would leave. The seven million would melt into nothing. The firm was worth twenty million on a bad day.

Missy knew it too. She simply did not care.

"Agreed," she said. "With one addition." She slid a single typed page across the desk.

"A consulting agreement between Vance Meridian and Thibodeaux Interiors, LLC. One and a half million dollars for design services on your new office space. Wired the day before closing. It stays separate from the purchase agreement."

Thibodeaux Interiors was a decorating business Missy had registered in 2011 and never used. Carter's name appeared nowhere on it. The money would never pass through the firm's books, never appear on the closing statement, never be counted as part of the marital estate, and never be touched by Aurora's lawyers or Dustin Morgan or anyone else.

Vance read the page, smiled his white smile, and signed it with a fountain pen. For eleven million, he was getting a twenty-million-dollar book of business. He could afford to buy her a few curtains.

"The client consents," Neil said weakly. "Three hundred and twelve accounts. Some of these families have been with Carter's father since..."

"Are already drafted." Missy opened her Hermès bag and set a stack of letters on the desk. They were printed on Langley Capital letterhead and written in the warm, folksy voice Carter used at Christmas parties.

After forty-five years, I've decided it's time to slow down and spend more time with my family. I've found a partner I trust completely to carry on my father's legacy. If we don't hear from you within thirty days, we'll take that as your blessing.

Each one was signed Carter in a confident blue hand.