Chapter 12 - Graham Pike
Graham Pike agreed to meet only after prosecutors contacted his attorney.
He arrived without arrogance.
That made Naomi more cautious.
People with nothing left to prove could be dangerous in a different way.
Graham admitted creating Brighton Advisory.
At first, it was a legitimate consulting vehicle.
Then he began billing the Foundation for vague “strategy services.”
“She didn’t expose me,” Graham said.
“She asked for a cut.”
Vanessa had access to donors, schedules, and Adrian’s private conversations.
She sold him information.
Later Daniel Reece paid for market intelligence through the same network.
Patricia handled money movement.
“Why frame Elena?” Rachel asked.
“Vanessa’s idea.”
“Claire?”
“Also Vanessa.”
But he sounded truthful where records matched him.
Then Naomi asked:
“Thomas Cole confronted you?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Two weeks before he died.”
“Did you threaten him?”
“He threatened me. With auditors.”
That sounded like Thomas.
“Did Vanessa threaten him?”
“She said he wouldn’t be around forever.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“Meaning?”
“Ask her.”
Graham denied any involvement in Thomas’s death.
Medical records still showed a natural heart attack.
Naomi refused to let grief rewrite evidence.
The fraud was real enough.
Then Graham revealed why the gala mattered.
Vanessa planned to use the engagement party to obtain Adrian’s biometric approval on a charity auction tablet.
A normal signature screen.
Except the device had been modified to capture a reusable authentication token.
With it, Vanessa hoped to approve the wedding-week board resolution.
“Where is the tablet?”
“Ask Patricia.”
Security searched gala inventory.
One auction tablet was missing.
Marcus checked footage from the loading dock.
Patricia Sterling had carried a silver case out of the building during the blackout.
Police found her car at the airport.
She had not boarded a flight.
Naomi looked at Vanessa’s recent calls.
One number appeared repeatedly.
A motel near the interstate.
But inside they found Patricia’s silver case.
The missing tablet was there.
So was a folder marked:
NAOMI BENNETT.
Photographs of her arriving at work.
Her old protective-services license.
Then one handwritten line:
IF SHE PUSHES TOO FAR, MAKE HER LEAVE.
Adrian stared at Naomi.
“They were investigating you.”
Naomi closed the folder.
“No.”
“They were preparing to scare me.”
Then her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photo appeared.
Her younger sister leaving work.
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