Chapter 3
I called Dad before I started the car.
“Celeste’s in your study.”
“I’m coming back inside.”
I watched him return through the front door. A moment later, the study light went off. He texted me that she had left the room when he asked. He would lock the files away and call his attorney in the morning.
I drove home with the black folder on the passenger seat.
My apartment looked the way I had left it: a blanket over the couch, two mugs in the sink, work notes scattered on the table. I had never been so glad to close my own door.
At midnight, Brianna called.
I considered letting it ring. Then I answered.
“Mom says you planned this,” she said.
“I didn’t know about the papers until Dad gave them to me.”
“She says you’ve been telling him she mistreats you.”
“I told him tonight.”
Brianna was quiet.
“Why did you say I criticized dinner?”
“I said you didn’t.”
“After Dad asked you twice.”
“I know.”
I waited.
“Mom told me that if Richard got angry enough, he’d make us leave,” Brianna said. “I didn’t think she meant it.”
“She’s been making me feel unwelcome in my own childhood home for months.”
“I saw some of it.”
The admission hurt.
“Then why did you laugh tonight?”
“I don’t know. I was trying to keep her from turning on me.”
I sat on the edge of my couch.
“You could have stayed quiet.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
I wanted to accept it. I also needed her to understand what it had cost me.
“I was standing there with her hand on my arm,” I said. “You were laughing.”
“I won’t do that again.”
I told her good night and ended the call.
At work the next morning, I found an email from Dad’s attorney, Mara Singh. She wanted me at a meeting that afternoon to go through the transfer documents. Dad would join us.
Before I could reply, my department manager, Colin, appeared at my office door.
“Your father is asking for the vendor records,” he said.
“Which vendor?”
“Northstar Consulting.”
I had approved project expenses for our division for three years. I knew the companies we used. Northstar was not one of them.
“How much have we paid them?” I asked.
Colin hesitated.
“That’s why he wants the records.”
At the meeting, Mara put a spreadsheet in front of us.
Northstar had received nearly four hundred thousand dollars over eighteen months. The payments had been approved through a process usually used for urgent outside services. Some invoices listed work for departments that had no record of receiving it.
My stomach tightened.
“Who signed off?”
Mara pointed to a line. The approval bore the name of our former chief operations officer, Daniel Cross. He had resigned in June.
Dad leaned back in his chair.
“Daniel recommended that I hire Brianna last year.”
Brianna worked part-time in our events office. She had no authority over vendor payments.
Mara turned to me. “We don’t know who received the money. We’re reviewing records before making any accusation.”
I studied the invoices.
One billed us for a launch event that had been canceled. I remembered helping cancel it.
“This one wasn’t paid for a real event,” I said.
“Then we’ll trace it,” Mara replied.
Dad’s phone lit up. Celeste had called three times during the meeting. He silenced it.
Afterward, he asked me to walk with him.
“I want you to take the company role described in the transfer,” he said. “But I don’t expect you to solve these payments because your name is on the shares.”
“I know the events team. I can help verify the work.”
“You can. Mara will lead the investigation.”
I nodded. It meant something that he trusted me to help without asking me to carry the whole problem.
That evening, I met Mara in the records room. We matched invoices against canceled events and staff schedules. We found eight that needed closer examination.
As we worked, I noticed a mailing address at the bottom of a Northstar invoice.
It was a commercial building across town.
I recognized the address because Celeste had once asked me to drop off a package there. She had called it her friend’s design studio.
I told Mara.
“Are you certain?” she asked.
“I remember circling the block twice to find parking.”
Mara wrote it down.
At seven, Dad called. Celeste had told him she knew nothing about Northstar. He hadn’t mentioned the address yet.
“Don’t confront her with it tonight,” Mara advised when I told her. “Let us confirm who leases the space.”
I agreed.
As I left the office, Brianna stood by the elevators.
“I need to show you something,” she said.
May you like
She held out a photograph on her phone. It showed her mother at a restaurant with Daniel Cross, the former operations officer.
“I took it last week,” Brianna said. “He told Dad they hadn’t spoken since he left the company.”
