Chapter 3 - The CFOI did not open the door.
“Martin, I’m changing.”
“We need to talk.”
“About what?”
Silence.
Then:
“Your sister.”
Lena mouthed, Don’t.
I agreed.
“Talk to Andrew.”
Martin’s voice hardened.
“This doesn’t need lawyers.”
That sentence told me more than he intended.
I turned on the bridal-suite camera audio from my phone.
“Then why are you at my door?”
Another silence.
Finally:
“Vanessa is upset.”
“She ruined my dress.”
“She made a mistake.”
I almost laughed.
There it was.
The family language.
Mistake.
Accident.
Misunderstanding.
Words that made deliberate choices sound harmless.
“Go downstairs, Martin.”
He did not move.
I could see his shadow beneath the door.
Then my second phone buzzed.
Andrew:
DO NOT LET HIM IN. INVESTIGATOR CONFIRMED HE APPROVED THREE OF THE SHELL-VENDOR PAYMENTS.
My stomach dropped.
Martin had been our CFO for eleven years.
My mother trusted him.
I trusted him.
Vanessa trusted him too.
Apparently for a reason.
I typed:
He’s outside my door.
Andrew replied:
Security is coming.
Martin knocked again.
“Claire, think about what you’re doing. If you make this public today, you’ll destroy the company.”
I stared at the door.
“Funny.”
“What?”
“That’s exactly what Vanessa said when I asked where the money went.”
No answer.
Then the hallway camera feed appeared on my phone.
Martin was not alone.
Vanessa stood ten feet behind him.
She looked furious.
She whispered something.
Martin turned.
The microphone caught only two words.
“The backup.”
My pulse jumped.
Backup?
Lena heard it too.
“What backup?”
I opened the secure folder.
Everything was there.
Then I understood.
Not my evidence backup.
The company’s.
Eight months ago, my mother’s former executive assistant had told me she kept duplicate accounting archives in a storage room beneath the ballroom.
This venue used to be the Collins family hotel.
My mother had sold it years earlier, but old records remained under a retention agreement.
Vanessa knew that.
So did Martin.
I called venue security.
“Lock the basement archive.”
The guard hesitated.
“Ma’am… someone already opened it.”
My blood went cold.
“Who?”
May you like
He checked.
“Access card belongs to Vanessa Collins.”
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