Chapter 6 - THE MONEY UNDER THOMAS’S NAME
The financial records were worse than Rachel expected. Nearly eight million dollars had moved through shell companies using Thomas’s authorization. The signatures looked perfect, but several were timestamped when Thomas could not possibly have approved them.
Daniel sat across from Ruiz with his lawyer beside him and both hands visible on the table.
“I told you I could explain the money.”
“Go ahead.”
“I found the transfers two months ago.”
“Why didn’t you tell Thomas?”
“I did.”
Rachel stared at him.
Thomas’s draft had warned her about Daniel.
Daniel rubbed his face.
“He thought I was responsible because my login appeared on several transactions. I told him someone was framing me.”
“Marla?” Rachel asked.
Daniel’s face changed.
“I didn’t want to believe that.”
Ruiz slid the lab report toward him.
“Start believing faster.”
Daniel admitted Marla controlled internal permissions and knew Thomas’s schedule, medical history, and twenty-five-million-dollar life insurance policy. Rachel was the beneficiary.
“Then why would Marla—”
Rachel understood before he did.
“If I was charged with his death…”
Ruiz nodded.
“The policy could be frozen. The company could fall into temporary control under the emergency succession clause.”
Daniel went still.
“Which gives control to the CFO and the vice chairman.”
“Marla and you,” Rachel said.
He looked genuinely horrified.
“I didn’t know.”
Ruiz’s phone rang.
It was an officer searching Marla’s apartment.
Nobody had seen her since that morning.
Her closet was half empty.
Her laptop was gone.
But inside her fireplace they found burned documents and one piece that had survived.
A funeral contract.
Thomas’s funeral contract.
Signed three weeks before he collapsed.
Rachel stared at the date.
“Who plans a funeral three weeks before someone dies?”
Ruiz looked at the signature line.
“Someone who knows the date is coming.”
Then Daniel whispered, “That’s not Marla’s handwriting.”
Rachel looked at him.
“Whose is it?”
May you like
Daniel swallowed.
“My mother’s.”
