Chapter 8
West Annex had once been a dispatch office, and the old route maps still clung to the walls beneath layers of clear plastic. Rain ticked against the narrow windows while I stood at the conference table, watching the empty doorway.
Daniel had brought two security officers. Owen waited beside them with the written access restrictions on his tablet, his expression drawn tight.
Vanessa arrived at 8:29, carrying a black folio.
“You came,” she said.
“I said I would.” I kept my hands on the table. “Show me the original ledger.”
She glanced toward the officers. “I want it understood that I’m not handing over my only copy to company security.”
“You asked me here because you said it proves Adrian planned to leave you with nothing. If you want me to believe you, put it on the table.”
Her jaw shifted. For one quick second, I saw the woman from the ballroom—the one whose smile had cracked when I congratulated her. Then she set down the folio and opened it.
Inside was a bound ledger, its edges softened from handling. Vanessa turned to a section marked with narrow paper tabs. Dates, initials, payment references, and short handwritten notes filled the pages in precise columns.
My gaze snagged on the entries for Larkspur. The descriptions were spare enough to hide behind, but the repeated references matched the invoices Priya had found.
“Is this the original?” I asked.
“It never left my office.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No,” she said. “It isn’t.”
Her admission didn’t make me trust her. It made me listen harder.
Vanessa slid three pages across the table. Each showed the same pattern: her company credentials attached to an approval, then a second authentication from Dean Larkin, Vale Meridian’s finance chief.
The first page carried Dean’s initials. The second showed a digital authentication record. On the third, his approval appeared beside Vanessa’s credentials again.
I looked up. “You told us you approved these at Adrian’s direction.”
“I did.”
“And Dean?”
“He authenticated them.”
“Then your ledger doesn’t show that you were framed. It shows you were involved.”
Vanessa’s eyes flashed. “I didn’t say I was innocent.”
“You let me wonder.”
“I let you decide whether the pages mattered more than what you think of me.”
“That’s not the same as telling the truth.”
“No,” she said again, quieter this time. “It isn’t.”
The pages sat between us like a confession neither of us had asked for. I remembered her hand in Adrian’s beneath the ballroom lights, and the applause that had followed. Whatever he had promised her, she had chosen to help him move money through a company that depended on it.
“What did Adrian promise you?” I asked.
Her fingers pressed into the open folio. “That I’d have a place in what came next.”
“A place where?”
She started to answer, then the door slammed against the stop.
Adrian strode in, rain shining on the shoulders of his coat. He looked first at Vanessa, then at the pages on the table, then at me.
“I told you to stay away from her.”
Vanessa’s face went white, but her hand stayed on the ledger.
Adrian turned to the security officers. “Get them out. All of them.”
Neither officer moved.
Owen stepped between Adrian and the table. “Your access restrictions are still in effect. You were given a written copy.”
“I’m the CEO.”
“Not while suspended,” Owen said. “And not in this building.”
Adrian gave a sharp laugh. “You’re going to take orders from her now?”
“I’m following the board’s written instructions.”
Adrian lunged for the ledger. Owen caught his arm before he reached it. The movement was quick and controlled, but Adrian’s anger filled the room as if he’d thrown something against the walls.
“Let go of me.”
Owen released him and moved the ledger out of reach. One of the security officers took a position between Adrian and the table.
“Vanessa,” Adrian said, his voice suddenly low. “You know what happens if you hand that over.”
She looked at him. “I know what happens if I don’t.”
“You don’t have the whole story.”
“I have enough of it.”
The door opened again. Dean Larkin stepped inside, still wearing his overcoat, his face gray beneath the fluorescent lights. He stopped when he saw Adrian.
“You came,” I said.
Dean looked at the pages, then at Adrian. His mouth tightened.
“I authenticated those payments,” he said. “The approvals are mine.”
Vanessa leaned back, eyes fixed on him.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because Adrian told me the project was authorized at the highest level. He said there were protections in place and that the board would be briefed after the financing closed.” Dean swallowed. “When I questioned the invoices, he said he could end my career before lunch.”
Adrian stepped toward him. “You’re lying.”
Dean flinched. It was small, but I saw it.
“Did he threaten anyone else?” Daniel asked.
Dean’s eyes dropped to the table. “He knew which people I couldn’t afford to disappoint.”
“That isn’t corroboration,” I said.
“No,” Dean replied. His voice trembled, but he didn’t look away. “It’s what happened.”
I felt the pull of sympathy—the familiar instinct to ease someone else’s fear before asking what it had cost other people. I did not follow it.
“You signed the approvals,” I said. “Your fear may explain why. It doesn’t erase what you did.”
“I know.”
Adrian looked between us, searching for the weak point. “This is a farce. A frightened finance chief, a spurned executive, and my wife playing investigator.”
“My review doesn’t depend on your permission,” I said.
“Your review?” His smile returned without warmth. “You still think you can control the ending.”
“I’m asking what you did with the company’s money.”
He faced me fully. “You have no idea what it takes to keep this company alive.”
“Then why hide the payments?”
For the first time, he had no answer ready. His gaze slid to the ledger, and Vanessa closed the folio with a firm snap.
Dean made a sound like he was trying to breathe through pain. “There’s another ledger.”
Adrian went still.
I looked at Dean. “Where?”
“Not here. Adrian kept it outside company systems.” His eyes flicked toward the narrow window, where rain blurred the loading bays beyond it. “I know where it is.”
“Can you get it?”
May you like
Dean’s expression changed. Not fear alone now, but calculation—and the dread of what he might have to risk.
“I can tell you where to look,” he said. “Whether it’s still there is another question.”
