Chapter 2 - The Blue Ledger
I put the ledger on the table.
“Sit down.”
Mom shook her head.
“I should go.”
“No.”
My voice came out sharper than I expected.
“You have my lawyer’s note in your purse. You have Dad’s ledger. You were just wrapped around my husband in my kitchen. You’re not going anywhere until somebody tells me the truth.”
Noah sat first.
Diane remained standing.
I opened the ledger.
My father, Thomas Harper, had founded Harper Community Properties thirty-one years earlier. After he died, my mother remained chair of the family foundation. Noah became finance director. I owned the largest block of voting shares but had stayed out of daily accounting.
Dad wrote everything by hand.
Halfway through the ledger, one company appeared again and again.
Westbridge Consulting.
Payments totaled more than two million dollars.
I looked at Noah.
“Is this the transfer I saw?”
“Part of it.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t know whether the signatures were real.”
I flipped pages.
There was my name.
CLAIRE HARPER BENNETT.
“I never signed these.”
“I know.”
Mom finally sat.
“I can explain.”
Noah laughed once.
“You’ve had six months.”
She snapped at him.
“And you’ve had six months to poison my daughter against me.”
I slammed the ledger shut.
“He didn’t have to. You did a pretty good job yourself.”
Her face collapsed.
“Claire, your father left a mess.”
“What mess?”
“Debts. Properties losing money. Promises he made without telling me.”
Noah pushed the flash drive toward me.
“That’s what she told me too.”
“What’s on it?”
“Copies of the audit.”
Mom reached for it.
I put my hand over the drive.
Noah said, “Westbridge was paid $2.4 million over four years. It has no employees, no real office, and no work product I can find.”
My stomach dropped.
“Who owns it?”
Noah looked at Diane.
Mom whispered, “Claire…”
“Who owns it?”
“A trust controlled by your mother.”
I stared at her.
May you like
Then Noah added the part that hurt worse.
“She only knew I was investigating because you told her you saw the transfer.”
