Chapter 3
The recorder crackled in Adrian’s hand.
He glanced at Emma, who had pressed her rabbit against her chest. The little girl had already heard more than any child should have to hear about a dead woman’s room.
“Rachel, could you take Emma into the sitting room for a moment?”
Rachel looked at him, then at the recorder.
“I’ll stay with her. The door will remain open.”
Adrian nodded. “Thank you.”
Emma’s eyes stayed on the device.
“Is it the blue lady?”
“I don’t know,” he said gently. “We’re going to find out what Claire recorded.”
Rachel led Emma toward the adjoining room. Emma went without protest, but looked back once before the open doorway hid her from view. Rachel settled beside her, close enough that Adrian could still hear her soft voice.
He turned the recorder’s volume down and pressed play.
A stretch of static filled the dressing room. Then Claire’s voice came through, quieter than he remembered, but unmistakably hers.
“Date, October ninth. I’ve matched the Westwood Children’s Fund disbursements against the invoices. The same payments are appearing twice. One copy is under the project account, and the other—”
A rustle interrupted her. Paper, maybe. Claire continued.
“—the other is under a vendor I can’t verify. Madison’s name is on the approval sheets.”
Adrian gripped the recorder.
Claire had been careful with money. Not because she needed to be—she could have bought anything she wanted without checking a bill—but because she believed that charitable funds belonged to the people they were meant to help.
He leaned closer, as if that could bring her voice nearer.
A second voice entered the recording.
“Then you’re looking at incomplete paperwork.”
It was a woman’s voice, controlled and cool. Adrian felt his shoulders tighten. The sound was thin and distorted, and he couldn’t tell if he recognized it or only wanted to.
Claire answered, “I’m looking at payments that don’t match the project.”
“You have no idea what you’re looking at.”
“I know the funds are missing.”
There was a pause. Adrian could hear a faint scrape, like a chair pushed across a floor.
“You should have left this alone,” the other woman said.
Claire’s reply was almost too quiet to catch.
“Why? What happens if I don’t?”
“Don’t threaten me,” the woman snapped. “You’re the one making accusations you can’t prove. If you take this to Adrian, you’ll regret it.”
Adrian’s mouth went dry. He glanced toward the doorway. Rachel was still sitting with Emma, one hand resting protectively on the child’s shoulder.
The recording continued.
Claire said, “You’re afraid I’ll show him the invoices.”
“I’m telling you to stop.”
“And I’m asking why a charity account paid North Shore Motor Works. Invoice 4418. What did that shop do for the fund?”
The other woman gave a short, humorless laugh.
“That invoice wasn’t supposed to be in your files.”
Adrian went still.
He knew that name.
North Shore Motor Works. Invoice 4418.
He had seen it in the investigation file after Claire’s crash—a routine vehicle-service charge listed among documents collected by police. At the time, it had seemed like an ordinary detail, the sort of thing that ended up in a report because investigators were being thorough. He had looked at the paperwork years ago, grief-struck and exhausted, and moved on when nothing there seemed to explain why Claire’s car had left the road.
On the recording, Claire drew a sharp breath.
“So there was a reason it was hidden.”
“I said stop.”
“You can’t make the numbers disappear.”
The other woman’s voice dropped. “You don’t understand what you’re risking.”
“I understand exactly what I’m risking.”
A dull thump followed. Adrian couldn’t tell if something had struck the table or if the recorder had been moved.
Then the file ended.
For several seconds, he heard only the quiet hiss of the device.
He pressed stop.
Rachel appeared in the doorway, leaving Emma just beyond her. Her face had tightened with concern.
“Was that Madison?”
“I don’t know.” Adrian’s voice came out rough. “It sounded like her.”
“But you’re not certain.”
“No.”
He hated the answer. He hated that Claire’s voice had reached him from a device hidden behind her dresses and still left him with more questions than certainty.
The recording proved that Claire had been worried about money. It proved she had confronted someone. It did not, by itself, prove who the other woman was or what the invoice meant.
Adrian set the recorder down, careful not to press another button.
“We should let the police hear it,” Rachel said.
“We will. I don’t want to disturb anything else.”
He turned to Claire’s papers. The pages were covered in her compact handwriting: dates, vendor names, figures, and short notes in the margins. He read them slowly, resisting the urge to leap from suspicion to conclusion.
The first dates were from late September. Then early October. Claire had circled three payments and drawn lines between them. Beside one, she had written: Duplicate?
Another note read: Ask M. about authorization.
The entries continued into the weeks before the crash. Adrian recognized the final date. It was four days before Claire had driven toward Lake Forest on that rain-soaked night.
He lowered the page.
Four days.
The number brought back the call he had spent three years trying not to replay. Claire’s voice had been strained, but he’d been rushing between meetings in San Francisco. He had promised to call when he got home. He had meant it. He had believed there would be time.
He could still hear her last words.
“There’s something I need to tell you about Madison.”
His eyes returned to the note beside the circled payment. Ask M. about authorization.
“She was trying to tell me,” he said.
Rachel didn’t offer easy comfort. She only stood beside him, letting him look at the page without pretending its meaning was already clear.
Adrian lifted the next sheet. A folded document slipped from between the papers and landed on the dresser.
It was a garage invoice, creased down the middle. He opened it.
The printed name at the top was North Shore Motor Works. Beneath it sat the invoice number.
4418.
He looked from the number to the recorder, then back at Claire’s notes. This was the invoice she had named. The same one he remembered from the crash investigation.
The listed work was brief, the description ordinary: inspection, adjustment, parts. Nothing on the page explained why the charge had been paid through an account connected to the charitable project—or why Claire had been warned to stop asking about it.
At the bottom, a line of small type caught his eye.
Payment authorization: Westwood Holdings.
Adrian stared at it. His company kept records for every authorized payment. If this invoice had been paid through Westwood Holdings, the matching authorization should have been in their books.
May you like
He had never seen it there.
The invoice bore a payment authorization his own company records should contain.
