Chapter 9 - What Sloane Knew
“Then tell us what you can,” I said. “Claire and Dana are listening.”
On the speakerphone, Sloane took a breath. Traffic hissed behind her.
“Lark was brought in for Cedar Row,” she said. “Grant told me they would handle targeting after we stopped working with Mara.”
“Did you see any work?” Dana asked.
“Not on Cedar Row.”
“Did you see work on another project?”
“Yes. That’s why this isn’t as simple as saying every marketing invoice was fake.”
Claire pulled a pad toward her. Before Sloane could continue, she said, “If you have records, we’d rather review them than rely on your memory. We can meet here this afternoon, if Evelyn wants to.”
I looked at the phone. Yesterday, I would have said Sloane’s name with my husband’s in the same breath and believed that settled what kind of person she was. Now she might know where company money had gone.
“I’ll meet,” I said. “Not privately. And I’m not promising you anything.”
“I understand.”
“I don’t think you do,” I said. “I heard you at Bellwether.”
The traffic noise faded, as though she had stepped into a doorway.
“I know,” she said.
Claire gave Sloane the office address. After the call ended, she sent the measured response we had drafted to the firm members. It said I disputed making the February 5 Northline approval and that the underlying records were being preserved for independent review. It did not name Grant as the person who had used my account. We still did not know who had.
Dana returned to her table of marketing charges. The legitimate supplier invoice she had separated from them remained on top of a different pile. Its due date was close.
“We should make sure that keeps moving through the ordinary process,” I said.
Claire nodded. “Questioning one payment doesn’t mean freezing the firm.”
By midafternoon, the sunlight in Claire’s conference room had shifted across the table. Sloane arrived alone, carrying a canvas tote instead of the sleek purse she had worn at Bellwether. Her diamond pendant was gone.
I hated that I noticed.
She stopped at the doorway when she saw Dana.
“Dana’s reviewing the accounts,” Claire said. “She was on the call. You can decide whether to speak with us.”
Sloane sat down. She took a thin folder from her bag but kept one hand on it.
Claire introduced herself formally, then made the terms plain. We had not offered Sloane confidentiality, a job guarantee, or protection from the consequences of anything she had done. She did not have to give us documents she was not entitled to possess, and we were not asking her to enter anyone else’s account. If she wanted legal advice for herself, she could get it before going further.
“I’m not asking for immunity,” Sloane said.
“You asked us to hear you out,” I said. “I’m listening.”
She looked at me. “At Bellwether, I knew what Grant wanted Simon to say. I heard him offer money. I knew you hadn’t done anything in that restaurant when he asked for that report.”
Claire’s pen stopped.
“And what you said about his attorney?” I asked.
“Grant told me his attorney wanted evidence you were irrational. I repeated it. I never heard the attorney say that.”
“You laughed.”
Sloane’s fingers tightened on the folder. “Yes.”
There was no useful response to that. For days I had imagined hearing her admit it. The admission did not make me feel taller. It only took away one place she could hide.
“Why go along with him?” I asked.
“He made it clear what would happen to my job if I challenged him in front of people.” She swallowed. “I should have challenged him anyway.”
“Did he tell you he would fire you?”
“He said there was no place for someone on his team who couldn’t back him up. That was before Bellwether. He didn’t need to repeat it there.”
I believed she had been afraid. I also remembered Simon, who had been offered ten thousand dollars and had refused. Fear explained a choice; it did not turn it into someone else’s choice.
“Have you told Grant you called?” Claire asked.
“No.”
“Do not contact Simon or the waitress on our behalf,” Claire said. “They’ve given their own accounts. We’re not asking you to coordinate yours with theirs.”
Sloane nodded.
Dana opened the Cedar Row calendar. “Let’s talk about the work. Start with what you can identify from records you handled.”
Sloane moved closer to the screen. She pointed out Harbor Street’s storefront photographs and printed ads. Mara Ellis had made the artwork, she said, while Northline coordinated placements and print production. Dana already had Mara’s account of that older campaign. The invoices, artwork files, and placement dates could be checked against one another.
“For Cedar Row, Mara did concepts,” Sloane said. “Those were paid for. We canceled the later design work.”
“Who canceled it?” Dana asked.
“I did. Grant wanted to change direction.”
“And the description saying ‘final artwork delivered’?”
Sloane shook her head. “Mara didn’t deliver final artwork. I didn’t write that description, but I saw it in the summary after it went through.”
“Did you object?”
“Not in writing.”
Dana wrote that down. She did not mark the entire Cedar Row column as unsupported.
“What did Lark do?” I asked.
“Grant introduced their contact by email. He said they specialized in reaching prospective tenants through business networks. I was supposed to supply campaign information.”
“Did you?”
“I sent the public leasing sheet and the concept brief. Nothing about tenants or employees.”
That was an assertion we could test. Claire asked Sloane to identify the message, its attachments, and the account from which she had sent it.
Sloane opened her folder. Inside were printouts with email dates and subject lines visible. She slid one to Dana. It showed Sloane sending Lark a brief for Cedar Row and receiving a proposed outreach schedule. Several weeks later, another message from the same contact asked when finished artwork would be available.
“There wasn’t any,” Sloane said. “I told them the campaign was paused.”
Dana read both messages twice. “These show a proposal and a question about artwork. They don’t show deployment.”
“I know.”
“The register shows Lark received $9,640 for ‘campaign completion and deployment,’” Dana said. “What did you see that supported that description?”
“Nothing. When I asked Grant for a completion report, he said it was handled.”
“Was it possible someone else at Lark did work you didn’t see?”
“Yes.” Sloane kept her eyes on the printout. “But I oversaw the Cedar Row campaign. I can’t tell you what they completed.”
Claire asked whether Sloane knew who owned Lark Strategies. Sloane said no. Grant had introduced a contact; she had not checked the company’s ownership, and the materials in her folder did not identify it.
I wanted to ask why she had accepted so little. Then I thought of the budgets I had reviewed from Grant’s summaries when the portal was busy and he was impatient. Wanting to believe someone had done their job was not the same as proof that they had. It was also not proof that either of us had authorized what followed.
“Did you approve Lark’s payment?” I asked.
“I sent the brief and the contact information to the person setting up the vendor. I didn’t submit the payment approval.”
“That can be checked,” Dana said.
“It should be.”
I watched Sloane. Her willingness to be checked did not make her account true. It did make this conversation different from the one at Bellwether, where she and Grant had tried to arrange a conclusion before anything happened.
“What about the approvals under my name?” I asked.
Sloane glanced at Claire. “I don’t know who used your login.”
“Did you see anyone at Grant’s desktop on February 5?”
“No. I wasn’t in that office that morning.”
We had records linking an approval session to a machine assigned to Grant’s office. We still needed the fuller sign-in history. Sloane could not supply the person at the keyboard, and I would not put one there for her.
Claire asked about the folder. “Are these copies of messages you received or sent through your own work account?”
“Yes. I printed them before I came.”
“Leave the originals where they are,” Claire said. “We’ll note what you brought, and Dana will check the dates against the company records. Is there anything else?”
Sloane had been waiting for that question. She pulled out a folded document, thicker than the emails, and set it between us.
“I didn’t bring this to excuse the $9,640,” she said. “There may be more at stake.”
The first page was headed *Marketing Services Agreement*. Lark Strategies appeared on one side, our firm on the other. I read a description of outreach services and an amount payable upon specified milestones. Nothing on that page showed that the milestones had been met.
Dana turned to an attached schedule. It referred to outstanding Lark charges, separate from the payment already marked paid in the register. A paragraph below proposed securing those charges with future Cedar Row receipts.
I read it again.
“Does this mean Lark can take the rent?” I asked.
“We can’t say that,” Claire said. “We don’t have a complete executed agreement, or evidence of whatever else would be required. It may be a proposal.”
Sloane reached into the folder once more. “Grant asked me for the expected receipt dates last week. I thought he was checking whether the campaign had brought in tenants.”
“What did you give him?” Dana asked.
“A forecast. Not tenant account details.” Sloane looked at me. “I should have asked why Lark needed it.”
May you like
I stared at the agreement. We had been examining money the firm had already paid. On the page in front of me, Lark claimed a path to money we had not received yet.
Dana pointed to the final line of the schedule. The first receipts listed were expected from Cedar Row storefront leases in the coming days.
