By Design

The Whitmore facility sat back from the river on a stretch of road that seemed to have been chosen for having nothing on it. Pale glass, pale stone, a parking lot built for three times the cars that were in it. The company name appeared once, on a low slab of granite by the entrance, in letters small enough that you had to slow down to read them. Julian Mercer had toured prettier corporate campuses and uglier ones. This one had been built to look expensive and uninteresting at the same time, which took more discipline than people assumed.

Max pulled into a space near the doors and cut the engine. Nobody moved.

In the visor mirror, Julian could see Adrian in the back seat, hands buried in his coat pockets, eyes on the building. Not the entrance. The cameras. One on the light pole two spaces over, one above the doors, another tucked under the overhang where most people wouldn’t think to look. As Julian watched, the one on the pole turned a few degrees and settled on their car. Adrian’s eyes went to it and stayed there. Then the turnstiles visible through the glass, then the roofline. He was counting exits. He probably didn’t know he was doing it.

“You can still wait in the car,” Max said.

Adrian didn’t look away from the window. “I’m not waiting in the car.”

“I’m offering you a dignified alternative. Heated seats. The radio. You could nap.”

“Drive into the river, Max.”

Max grinned at the windshield, unbothered. He rarely needed encouragement. He had pushed the driver’s seat all the way back to fit his legs under the wheel, and his warm brown hair was still untidy from the drive with the window cracked. He looked like someone who had shown up for brunch. Julian knew better. Max’s eyes had already moved along the roofline twice, and they would keep doing it until they were back on the road.

“Remind me what we’re allowed to look at,” Max said.

“Anything Mercer money touched,” Julian said. “Nothing it didn’t.”

“And who decides what it touched?”

“Adam, until I can prove otherwise.”

Before Julian had taken the Seat, his father had committed a considerable amount of Mercer capital to a Whitmore expansion. Since then, Julian had found irregularities in how portions of that money moved: through subsidiaries, property expenses, specialized security contracts, operational accounts that didn’t map neatly onto the stated project. None of it was obviously illegal, and that was what had held his attention. The financing agreement gave Mercer limited audit and inspection rights over anything the capital supported. It did not give him the run of Whitmore Pharmaceuticals.

“He only agreed to this because the alternative was you taking it to the Charter,” Adrian said from the back.

“He agreed because he thinks he can bore me into going away.”

“Can he?”

Julian opened his door. “We’ll see.”

The cold came off the river and went straight through his coat. He’d dressed for a financial inspection: tailored charcoal, a dark knit underneath, a watch that didn’t announce what it had cost. Mercer money didn’t need a logo. Across the roof of the car, Adrian unfolded himself more slowly than he needed to, and for a moment the low sun caught his dark blond hair and the thin pale scar that cut through his left eyebrow. In photographs, Adrian always came across as the polite one. In person, with his mouth set like that, he looked like a man walking into a dentist’s office he owned.

This was still his father’s company. Julian didn’t need to say it, and he didn’t.

The lobby did exactly what it had been designed to do. Three stories of glass and pale stone, a reception desk long enough to land a plane on, a security station placed so that anyone coming through the doors had to walk past it. The air smelled like disinfectant and good coffee. A man cleaning the inside of the glass stepped aside as they came in. The guard at the turnstile saw Adrian and straightened. Julian had been watching versions of that reaction his whole life. Mercer, Whitmore, Bennett. People learned the names early, even when they never learned anything else.

In the dark glass of the security partition, the three of them came back at him in reflection: Max on the left with an inch on Julian that he never let anyone forget, Adrian a little shorter and narrower in the shoulders, Julian in the middle with his near-black hair and the build rugby had given him. They looked like what they were. Three men with too much money and not enough patience, walking into a building that didn’t want them.

The inner checkpoint was smaller and less theatrical. A young receptionist sat behind a second desk with her badge on a lanyard and her screens reflecting in her glasses. She looked up, took them in, and smiled just slightly less than the situation called for.

“Good morning,” she said. “Names, please.”

“Julian Mercer. Adrian Whitmore. Maxwell Bennett.” Julian kept his voice flat. “We’re expected.”

She checked her screen. “Mr. Mercer, you’re authorized for a limited financial inspection of the east administrative wing and the conference suite. Mr. Bennett is listed as accompanying security.” A pause. “Mr. Whitmore is listed as a guest of the inspection.”

Adrian’s head turned. “A guest.”

“That’s what the system says, sir.”

“I’m not a guest. This is my family’s company.”

The receptionist’s politeness didn’t move an inch. “I understand. I can only admit you according to the authorization on file. If you need access beyond the east wing, I’ll need an update from executive operations.”

Max leaned an elbow on the desk as easily as if he’d never once been refused anything. “And if we just walk through?”

“Then the doors won’t open,” she said. “And security will ask you not to do that again.”

“Override it,” Adrian said.

“I can’t.”

“My name is on the building.”

“Your name isn’t on this clearance, Mr. Whitmore.”

Julian filed that away. Adrian’s name didn’t automatically open the system. That was either a policy or a message, and Adam had left it in place for today either way.

“Then call someone,” Adrian said.

“I already did. They should be...”

The inner door opened before she could finish.