Chapter 4 - The Woman Who Kept the Originals
Victor Hale stepped through the hidden doorway.
Marianne moved in front of me.
For a strange second, nobody spoke.
Victor looked older than he had beneath Travis's office lights.
More tired.
Less certain.
His eyes moved from Marianne to me and finally to the folder.
“You shouldn't be here,” he said.
“Neither should you,” I answered.
His jaw tightened.
“Eliza, you don't understand what you're looking at.”
I almost laughed.
“That sentence must be printed in a handbook somewhere.”
“I'm trying to help you.”
“By putting my name on a $3.4 million transfer?”
His expression changed.
Marianne looked sharply at him.
“What transfer?”
Victor said nothing.
Interesting.
He hadn't expected Marianne to know.
I pulled out my phone.
“Stay where you are.”
“I'm not going to hurt you.”
“I didn't say you were.”
But I began recording.
Victor noticed.
“Good,” he said.
That surprised me.
“Good?”
“Record this.”
Marianne remained between us.
Victor exhaled.
“Travis is moving faster than I expected.”
“You were in his office helping him.”
“I was trying to make him talk.”
I stared at him.
“That's convenient.”
“He doesn't trust me anymore.”
“Neither do I.”
“You shouldn't.”
At least that sounded truthful.
Victor looked at Marianne.
“You kept everything?”
“Everything that mattered.”
“Then show her the 2019 resolution.”
Marianne's face hardened.
“No.”
“Marianne.”
“You lost the right to ask me for anything.”
Victor looked at me.
“There's a document Travis doesn't know survived.”
“What document?”
“The resolution that required both founders to approve any transfer above five hundred thousand dollars.”
I frowned.
“I remember that.”
“Good.”
“Why would Travis think it disappeared?”
Marianne answered.
“Because he ordered me to destroy it.”
Silence.
Victor rubbed his forehead.
“I told him it was gone.”
I looked between them.
“You two have been talking?”
“Years ago,” Marianne said.
“Not since.”
Victor nodded.
“She's telling the truth.”
“Why should I believe either of you?”
“You shouldn't,” Marianne said. “Believe the documents.”
That sounded exactly like the woman I remembered.
She opened the folder.
There it was.
The original board resolution.
My signature.
Travis's.
Marianne's witness notation.
Victor's financial acknowledgment.
Real ink.
Real paper.
A company seal.
The $3.4 million transfer couldn't legitimately have been authorized by Travis alone.
Which explained the imitation of my signature.
“What happened in 2019?” I asked.
Victor sat on a storage box.
“Northgate started growing too quickly.”
“I remember.”
“Travis wanted more control.”
“I remember that too.”
“He began creating project entities without fully explaining them to you.”
My stomach tightened.
“Were you helping him?”
“Yes.”
Marianne looked disgusted.
Victor didn't defend himself.
“At first, they were legitimate. Tax structuring. Liability separation. Normal things.”
“And then?”
“He realized complexity gave him privacy.”
“From me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you asked questions.”
That almost made me smile.
Of course.
Victor continued.
“Travis liked growth. You liked stability. He wanted leverage. You wanted reserves. He began seeing your caution as an obstacle.”
“So he removed the obstacle.”
“Gradually.”
I thought about all those conversations.
The children need you.
You're exhausted.
Let me handle this.
I can take the meetings.
You don't need this stress.
Concern had been such an effective disguise.
Marianne pulled out another document.
A resignation letter.
My resignation letter.
Except I had never written it.
Effective January 3, 2021, I supposedly resigned from active management.
My signature sat at the bottom.
Again, an old version.
Again, wrong.
“How many?”
I whispered.
Marianne understood.
“Eleven documents that I know of.”
Eleven.
Ownership amendments.
Resolutions.
Authorizations.
A resignation.
Each one had gradually transformed me from co-founder into spouse.
Then from spouse into outsider.
Victor said, “The transfer is different.”
“How?”
“The others rewrote the past.”
He looked at me.
“This one is designed to control what happens next.”
The $3.4 million.
My badge.
The access history.
The suspicious documents.
A narrative waiting to be used.
“What is Travis planning?”
Victor hesitated.
Marianne said, “Tell her.”
“He believes your attorney is close to forcing a forensic valuation.”
“She is.”
“So he wants the money outside Northgate before that happens.”
“And if someone discovers it?”
Victor looked directly at me.
“He wants another explanation ready.”
Me.
I felt sick.
Not because I was surprised anymore.
Because the architecture of it was so cold.
My husband wasn't reacting to our divorce.
He had prepared for it.
Possibly for years.
“Why are you helping me now?”
Victor's eyes dropped.
“My daughter.”
I waited.
“She works for an accounting firm. Travis asked whether she would certify a project valuation.”
“And?”
“She refused.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“He threatened her career.”
Victor's voice changed.
“He said he had enough relationships to make sure she never worked on a major account again.”
“So now you found a conscience.”
“No.”
He met my eyes.
“I found a line.”
It wasn't noble.
But perhaps truth rarely arrived through noble people.
Marianne closed the folder.
“We need to leave.”
Victor nodded.
“He'll check the room.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
We gathered what mattered.
Not everything.
Too obvious.
Marianne took originals.
I took photographs.
Victor left first.
Marianne waited with me.
Before we separated, she touched my arm.
“Eliza.”
“What?”
“You need to understand something.”
I looked at her.
“Travis didn't start planning this when the marriage failed.”
My stomach tightened.
“When did he?”
“Before Maisie was born.”
I stared at her.
“Why?”
She looked toward the hidden door.
“Because something happened after Northgate's first major project.”
“What?”
“Ask yourself why that client chose Travis.”
I remembered the project.
Bellweather Plaza.
The contract that saved Northgate.
The proposal I had rewritten.
The client who had ignored Travis twice and suddenly called back after our third presentation.
“What are you saying?”
Marianne pulled one final paper from her bag.
A photocopy of an old check.
$180,000.
Payable to Fenwick Consulting.
Dated two weeks after Bellweather signed.
“What is Fenwick Consulting?”
“That,” Marianne said, “is the question Travis never wanted you to ask.”
I looked at the endorsement.
The account number had been partially blacked out.
But the signature was visible.
Not Travis's.
Not mine.
A woman's.
And beneath it was a name that made absolutely no sense.
Because I knew her.
I had trusted her.
She had been sitting across from me at family dinners for twelve years.
I stared at Marianne.
“No.”
She nodded once.
“Yes.”
May you like
The check had been deposited by Travis's sister.
Rebecca Fenwick.
