Chapter 9 - Page Seven
We met Melissa in Margot's office, not mine. She asked for water and drank almost none of it.
"Mom said the company needed an updated authorization," Melissa began. "She said you had already agreed and couldn't make the appointment."
"So you signed as a witness to someone who wasn't there?"
"Yes."
"Did you see who wrote my name?"
Her eyes filled. "Daniel. In Mom's study."
For several seconds I heard nothing except the office heater clicking.
"Why tell me now?"
"Because the thing at dinner wasn't the first time they asked me to pretend something happened when it didn't."
She slid over a printed email. Subject: REVISED GUARANTY PACKAGE. Linda had instructed Melissa to bring identity documents from Daniel's home office and tell the lender's representative that Sarah was traveling. The email copied Daniel.
"This doesn't excuse what I did," Melissa said. "I was scared Mom would cut me out of the business. I'm still responsible."
"Did you see a notary?"
"A man named Arnold Pike. He was there. He stamped it even though you weren't."
Margot asked Melissa to preserve her emails and get her own attorney before making formal statements. She agreed to cooperate with lawful requests, though she was trembling so hard she could barely fold the papers.
After she left, Margot said, "We now have information investigators can test. But please don't assume the whole case is decided by one confession."
I called Dad.
He listened, then said, "My company will document what the files show. Any criminal question belongs to investigators, not me."
"What happens to the eighty employees?"
"I don't intend to punish them for a family's dishonesty. A business can be stabilized without forgiving fraud."
I wanted to believe him. I also wanted my name nowhere near those papers.
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That evening Margot sent me the next audit finding: someone had opened an account using my tax identification details.
Three transfers had already passed through it.
