Chapter 3: Everything He Approved
Jason's thumb hovered over the phone screen for three full seconds.
He didn't answer it.
He set it face-down on the table beside the folder, and when he looked up at me, something had changed in his eyes.
The shock was still there.
But underneath it, something harder had taken shape.
Something calculating.
"This is a performance," he said.
"You're doing this in front of my employees to destroy me."
"Your employees," I said.
"That's an interesting way to put it."
"Helena—"
"Open the folder, Jason."
Walter had stepped back.
The general counsel, a quiet man named Phillip Strand, stood three feet to my left with his hands folded in front of him.
The forensic accountant, a woman named Dr.
Carol Reyes, stood beside him holding a second, thicker document binder against her chest.
Jason looked at Phillip.
"What is your involvement in this?"
Phillip didn't answer.
Jason's jaw tightened.
He pulled the folder toward him and flipped it open.
The first page was a summary sheet.
Fourteen vendor payments.
Eighteen months.
A total of two point three million dollars routed through a shell company registered in Delaware under a name that meant nothing to anyone — except that the registered agent's address was a mailbox three blocks from the apartment Chloe Price had moved into eight months ago.
Jason read the first paragraph.
His hand went flat against the page.
"These are legitimate vendor contracts," he said.
"I approved them through the proper channels."
"You approved them," Dr.
Reyes said, speaking for the first time.
"That part is accurate."
"Then there's no issue."
"The vendors don't exist," she said.
"We contacted all fourteen.
Three numbers are disconnected.
Six go to voicemail boxes that were never set up.
The remaining five are registered to a single address in Wilmington that turns out to be a UPS store."
Jason closed the folder.
"I want my attorney."
"You're welcome to call him," I said.
"Though I'd suggest you do it somewhere other than this ballroom."
Chloe had moved further away.
She was now standing near the edge of the crowd, her scarlet gown catching the light, her arms crossed tightly over her chest.
She was watching Jason the way someone watches a building they're not sure is structurally sound.
Jason saw her looking.
"Chloe." His voice came out sharper than he intended.
"Come here."
She didn't move.
"Chloe."
"Jason," she said carefully, "I think you should listen to what they're saying."
His expression went very still.
"You knew about this," he said.
"I didn't know about any of this."
"The apartment.
The payments.
The company."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"The shell company's registered agent address," I said, "is the same building as Chloe's apartment.
Different suite number.
Same floor."
The room had gone quiet enough that people six feet away could hear every word.
Jason turned back to me.
The calculation in his eyes had shifted into something rawer.
"You want the company," he said.
"That's what this is.
You bought Meridian to take it away from me."
"I bought Meridian," I said, "because it was undervalued, because eight hundred people needed their jobs protected, and because the man responsible for draining its accounts needed to be standing exactly where you're standing right now."
"You can't prove I took anything."
Dr.
Reyes opened her binder and set a single page on the table beside the folder.
"This is the wire transfer authorization for the sixth payment," she said.
"Dated March fourteenth.
Signed with your credentials.
Sent from a device registered to your Meridian account at eleven forty-seven p.m.
on a Tuesday."
Jason looked at the page.
"Anyone could have accessed my credentials."
"The device," Phillip said quietly, "was your personal laptop.
The one Meridian's IT department has a complete activity log for."
Jason said nothing.
His phone, still face-down on the table, began to vibrate again.
He didn't reach for it.
I did.
I turned it over so he could see the screen.
The name on the caller ID was MARCUS REEVES — ATTORNEY.
"I'd answer that," I said.
"He's been trying to reach you for the last forty minutes."
Jason picked up the phone and walked away from the table without another word.
Chloe watched him go.
Then she turned to me, and for the first time all evening, the composure she had been wearing like a second gown showed a crack along the edge.
"Helena," she said.
"I need you to understand that I didn't know about the money."
I looked at the earrings she was wearing.
My earrings.
The ones I had bought with the first dividend check from my mother's firm, the year after she died.
"We'll talk," I said.
"But not tonight."
I picked up my water glass and walked back toward Walter.
Behind me, I heard Chloe exhale — a long, unsteady breath that told me she understood exactly how much trouble she was in.
And somewhere near the exit, Jason was on the phone with his attorney, speaking in a voice too low to carry.
But I had already heard everything I needed to hear.
Six weeks ago, Dr.
Reyes had found something in the wire transfer records that wasn't in the folder.
Something I had asked her to hold back until the right moment.
May you like
That moment hadn't come yet.
But it was coming.
