Chapter 17 - The Payment Nobody Mentioned
Graham closed his eyes for one moment. "I approved an advance to the charity," he said.
"How much?" Frances asked.
"Six hundred thousand dollars. Emergency repairs and tenant services. Vanessa said the plumbing couldn't wait."
Colin looked at the floor.
"Where did it go?" Priya asked.
Graham faced the room. "I don't know. I should have made sure. I didn't."
That admission changed him more than any dramatic speech could. For an instant, he was just a man forced to count the cost of looking away.
Vanessa seized the opening. "There! He knew about the money. But somehow I'm the criminal because I run this place?"
"Nobody's called you convicted of anything," Talia replied. "We're asking for the records."
Frances ordered the finance director to produce the transfer details. Colin refused. He said the information belonged to the accountants and couldn't be brought up on demand. Then he tried to leave through the side door.
Pike had been standing nearby, still speaking to an officer. When Colin reached the corridor, the officer asked him to wait for a statement. Colin stopped. Not arrested, not forgiven. Just unable to vanish without an explanation.
Graham called his finance staff and instructed them to send the payment confirmation directly to Priya and the board's independent counsel. "If I authorized something wrong, include my name," he said.
Vanessa turned toward me. "Look at you. Six months mopping floors and suddenly you're an investigator. You really think people have forgotten how your security career ended?"
The room went quieter.
"You failed a woman you were hired to protect," Vanessa said. "Your own company put it in writing."
June looked at me, confused and scared. "Naomi?"
May you like
I had spent years avoiding the next sentence, and Vanessa knew it.
"Yes," I said. "I did fail somebody."
