Chapter 4 - “I planned somewhere safe to stay if I learned you were involved with Northstar.”
“And after you learned about Vanessa?”
“That changed the question.”
“How?”
Claire folded her arms.
“Before Vanessa, I was asking whether I could trust you financially.”
Her eyes held mine.
“After Vanessa, I had to ask whether I trusted you at all.”
There was nothing I could say to that.
So I nodded.
As I turned toward the door, she spoke again.
“There’s one thing I haven’t told Michael yet.”
I faced her.
“What?”
Claire hesitated.
“The anonymous email wasn’t the first message.”
A chill moved through me.
“What do you mean?”
“Two weeks before that, I received an envelope at the house.”
“What was in it?”
“A photograph.”
My stomach tightened.
“Of what?”
“You.”
“With Vanessa?”
“No.”
Claire’s face had gone pale.
“You were standing outside the office with Marcus.”
I frowned.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It didn’t to me either.”
“What else?”
“Nothing. Just the photograph.”
“Why would someone send you a picture of me with my CFO?”
“I didn’t know.”
“Did you keep it?”
Claire nodded.
“Of course.”
She disappeared upstairs.
A minute later, she returned holding a clear plastic sleeve.
Inside was a photograph taken from across the street outside my company headquarters.
Marcus and I stood near the entrance.
I remembered the day immediately.
There had been a board meeting.
I was holding a coffee.
Marcus had a folder under his arm.
At first, there was nothing unusual.
Then I noticed the date printed on the bottom edge.
Fourteen months earlier.
The same month the first Northstar transfer occurred.
I turned the photograph over.
Three words were written on the back.
Ask who benefited.
My pulse slowed.
Not from calm.
From recognition.
The handwriting.
I had seen it before.
Not recently.
Years ago.
On handwritten financial notes.
Budget drafts.
Reimbursement approvals.
I looked at Claire.
“Where did this come from?”
“There was no return address.”
I turned the photograph over again.
Ask who benefited.
Suddenly, Evan Mercer no longer felt like the obvious answer.
Because I remembered exactly whose handwriting looked like that.
And it wasn’t Mercer’s.
It belonged to someone I had trusted with my company’s finances from the very beginning.
May you like
Someone who had been sitting across from me all week helping investigate the missing money.
Marcus Reed.
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