*tick-tick-tick-tick.*
“The… the Mercer Charter…?”
Arthur gasped, his voice cracking into that thin, pathetic squeak:
“Julian…
Julian swore to me that the wife was completely broken!
That you were an ordinary, un-ambitious cleaner who would pack her rags and drive away in a dented car!”
“Clara was the Director of Special Infrastructure Interdiction and the master fiduciary auditor who uncovered your entire Southwestern factoring network twelve years ago, Arthur,” Vice Admiral David Mercer spoke from behind our shoulders.
His voice was sixty decibels of mountain quarry explosive:
“She audited your enterprise while Julian was buying bespoke suits.”
“She protected this nation’s bedrock while your family was plotting to reduce her to poverty to steal the access shaft of Conduit Ten.”
Admiral Mercer slammed his service portfolio onto the granite table:
