Chapter 6 - The Numbers That Didn't Add Up
Martin placed the case on the table.
“I didn't kill your father.”
Emily stared at him.
“I didn't ask.”
“You were thinking it.”
Vanessa moved toward the door.
“Stay,” Martin said.
She stopped.
Martin explained that he'd worked under Daniel during the final Northbridge audit.
He had been twenty-seven.
Terrified.
When Daniel discovered the fraud, Martin helped copy records.
Then Daniel died.
Martin panicked.
“You spent twelve years hiding?”
“I spent twelve years surviving.”
Emily's voice hardened.
“While my father was blamed?”
“I didn't know they'd forged his records until later.”
Alexander entered moments later after tracing the false text.
He nearly called security.
Emily stopped him.
“Let him talk.”
Martin opened the black case.
Empty.
Emily stared.
“Where's the ledger?”
“Your father removed it.”
“Where?”
“Nobody knows.”
Martin revealed something else.
Northbridge hadn't merely stolen company money.
It had redirected pension funds.
Employee retirement accounts.
Thousands of workers had lost money without realizing it because later accounting adjustments covered the deficit.
Charles had allegedly orchestrated the scheme with outside executives.
But Daniel discovered it.
Richard Whitmore discovered it too.
They planned to expose Charles together.
Daniel died first.
Richard backed away.
“Why?” Alexander demanded.
Martin looked at him.
“Because Charles threatened you.”
Alexander went still.
“You were seventeen.”
Martin continued.
“Your father chose his son.”
Alexander turned away.
For the first time Emily saw something crack in him.
His entire life, he'd believed Richard had valued the company above everything.
Now he learned his father had abandoned justice because someone threatened his child.
It didn't absolve him.
But it changed him.
The ledger remained missing.
Emily returned home after midnight.
Diane was awake.
Emily placed the empty black case on the table.
Her mother stared at it.
Then began crying.
“You've seen this.”
Diane nodded.
“Your father brought it home once.”
“What was inside?”
“Documents.”
“The ledger?”
“I don't know.”
Diane touched the lining.
“He told me if anything happened, I should remember where we kept what mattered.”
Emily frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Diane looked toward the hallway.
Then toward an old framed family photograph they'd brought from the apartment.
Emily understood.
She removed the backing.
Nothing.
Then another photograph.
Nothing.
Noah joined them.
“What are we looking for?”
“Something Dad hid.”
For two hours they searched.
At 2:17 a.m., Noah picked up Daniel's old toolbox.
“You guys checked this?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Emily looked.
Noah pressed the bottom.
It shifted.
False panel.
Inside lay a small notebook.
Not the ledger.
A list.
Numbers.
Dates.
Initials.
Emily recognized the accounting pattern.
Each number corresponded to a transaction.
Then she saw a final entry.
R.W. — ORIGINAL LEDGER — 8/14.
Richard Whitmore.
Alexander's father had received the ledger.
Alexander searched his father's estate the next morning.
Nothing.
Then Emily noticed the date.
August 14.
“What happened that day?”
Alexander went quiet.
“My mother died.”
Emily looked at him.
“How?”
“Cancer.”
“Where were you?”
“At our lake house.”
“And your father?”
“With us.”
Emily stared at the notation.
“Maybe your father didn't hide it at the office.”
Alexander understood.
They drove to the abandoned Whitmore lake house.
The property had been closed for years.
Inside Richard's study, Alexander found nothing.
Emily examined the shelves.
One book had no dust.
Someone had been there recently.
She pulled it.
A mechanism clicked.
A panel opened.
Inside was a safe.
Alexander entered his mother's birthday.
Wrong.
His own birthday.
Wrong.
Emily looked at Daniel's note.
8/14.
Alexander entered 0814.
The safe opened.
Inside lay a leather-bound ledger.
And a recent photograph of Emily leaving Whitmore Holdings.
Someone had found the safe before them.
May you like
Someone knew they were there.
Then footsteps sounded upstairs.
