"The same year the project was terminated. A larger automotive investment group took a controlling stake. The restructuring was part of the acquisition process. " "Who acquired it? " A pause. Not long, but real. "A company called Stratton Group," she said, "based out of London.
They have significant holdings across the European automotive manufacturing sector. " Another pause. "They're also one of the larger investors in a company that recently approached Hale Automotive Group about a partnership arrangement. " Cole looked at her carefully. "How recently? " "Six months ago. " She held his gaze. "I declined the arrangement, but the approach was notable in retrospect. You think they knew you were looking for the car? " "I think they may have been watching to see if I'd find it.
And when I showed up at that Nevada auction, I may have confirmed something they were hoping wasn't true. " She looked at the documents. "Which means Douglas Farr, the attorney who called you, almost certainly works for Stratton Group, or someone connected to them. " Cole sat with this for a moment. The shape of it was large and not entirely clear. A corporate acquisition almost a decade old. A man named Marsh who'd taken something he shouldn't.
A prototype that had changed hands through fire and freight and an anonymous sale. And now a legal representative offering $120,000 to make it all go away. "They're not after the car," Cole said. "They're after the evidence. " "The prototype proves the project existed and was completed," Victoria said. "Under the terms of the original acquisition, any intellectual property developed during that period, including experimental vehicles, should have been disclosed to Stratton as part of the asset transfer.
If the project was hidden from them and the car was secretly removed by Marsh, that's a significant legal problem for whatever executives were involved in the acquisition. She paused. And if Stratton themselves were aware of the hidden project and chose not to disclose it to shareholders during the acquisition period, that's a bigger problem. Considerably bigger. Cole looked at the documents spread across his kitchen table and thought about the $120,000 and what it would mean to Emma and what it would mean to say yes to it.
"They'll come back with a higher number," he said. "Yes. " "How high do you think they'll go? " Victoria looked at him steadily. "High enough that it'll be very hard to say no. " Emma appeared in the kitchen doorway with her empty cereal bowl and looked at them both. "You have the same face," she said. "The thinking about something hard face. " "Do we? " Victoria said.
"Dad gets a line right here. " Emma pointed at the space between her own eyebrows. "You get one, too. Just smaller. " She put her bowl in the sink and drifted back out. Victoria looked at the empty doorway and then at Cole with an expression that was close to something warm, but not quite there. Like a room that had been warm recently and still held some of the heat.
Cole didn't say anything. He pulled the next manifest from the pile and kept working. Or, the Denver authentication team arrived on a Wednesday. There were two of them. A material specialist named Reyes, who worked primarily with racing vehicle provenance, and a carbon fiber structural examiner named Driscoll, who had an academic background in aerospace composites and moved around the car with the deliberate precision of someone who had once been paid to identify failures in things that flew.