Chapter 3 - The Man I Never Thanked
I read the agreement three times.
Four hundred thousand dollars.
That was the amount Bennett Ridge Holdings had wired into my dying startup when I was twenty-seven and forty-eight hours from shutting the doors.
I remembered the money.
I remembered crying in a gas station parking lot when my accountant called to say an anonymous investor had saved us.
"Why didn't he tell me?" I asked.
Grace shook her head. "He never told me either."
"Because I asked him not to."
"You knew?"
"I found him for you. Your father was gone. The bank had rejected you. I called everyone I knew, and Caleb listened. He believed in your software when nobody else did."
"Then why hide him?"
"Because the deal became dangerous."
Vanessa scoffed. "Convenient."
"Two years after the investment, someone bought Bennett Ridge's position through a transfer Caleb swore he never signed. The buyer was a private fund. Sterling Meridian."
I turned slowly toward Vanessa.
Her father's company.
Vanessa's face remained controlled, but a pulse jumped in her neck.
"My father has owned hundreds of funds. That proves nothing."
"It proves enough to audit," I said.
"Caleb told me he was working on something before he died. He said if anything happened to him, I should never trust a man named Sterling. I thought he meant a banker."
Vanessa snapped, "This is ridiculous."
"We need both of you evaluated. Now."
"There's more."
She looked toward Vanessa.
"Caleb's death wasn't the end of it. Someone kept using his signature for six months after he was buried."
"On what?"
"On the documents that eventually put Vanessa's father inside your company."
Vanessa's face finally cracked.
"That is a lie."
My mother stared straight at her.
"Then you won't mind if Adrienne sees the originals."
May you like
Vanessa went completely still.
Because apparently, my mother still had them.
