Chapter 13
Meredith’s hand released my wrist, but she stayed between me and the statement.
The room had gone quiet enough for me to hear the ventilation rattle above the buyers’ table. Graham’s fingers still curled around the table edge. His attorney watched me as if the pen were a weapon I’d almost used.
Then Meredith’s gaze dropped to my coat pocket.
“The key,” she whispered.
I felt its worn teeth through the fabric. Thomas’s old factory key had been with me since the tool chest, a small weight I’d carried through every room where Graham tried to make us doubt what we knew.
“What about it?” I murmured.
“The number.”
A buyer shifted in his chair. Across the table, Graham began to speak, but Meredith was already moving toward the door.
“Where are you going?” he demanded.
“To find what you say doesn’t exist.”
The buyers exchanged a look. I followed her into the corridor, the meeting room’s glass wall reflecting Graham’s rigid shape behind us. He didn’t follow. Not yet.
We passed the old records office, its door propped open, and descended a narrow metal stair into the lower storage room. The air changed at the bottom—cooler, damp, edged with the smell of cardboard and machine oil. Filing cabinets stood in rows beneath a low ceiling. Most had been emptied; their drawers hung open like pulled teeth.
Meredith stopped at the last cabinet.
Its faded metal tag read R-14.
I took out the key. The number stamped into its bow was nearly worn smooth, but still legible: R-14.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then I fitted it into the lock.
The cabinet door gave a protesting clunk. Inside, the drawers were bare except for dust and a few rusted paper clips. Meredith ran her hand along the inner wall, searching seams. I checked the rear panel. It looked solid, but one corner shifted under my thumb.
“Here.”
Together, we tugged. The steel back slid forward, scraping against the cabinet frame. Behind it lay a black ledger wrapped in oilcloth.
Meredith lifted it out. The bundle was heavy enough to pull her arms down.
A sharp bang echoed from above.
She looked toward the stairs.
“Graham knows we left.”
“He’ll have to wait.”
She peeled away the oilcloth. The ledger’s cover was cracked, its pages swollen slightly with age. My pulse thudded as she opened it to the first marked entry.
There were dates, amounts, vendor codes. Crown Meridian Services appeared again and again. Beside the entries ran a series of transfers, each marked with the same account number Meredith had recognized from Graham’s personal checks.
She turned to the last page. A control sheet listed the account holder and approving authority.
Graham Vale.
The name sat in his own ink, blunt and unmistakable.
Meredith’s breath caught. She didn’t look relieved. The evidence meant the money trail was real, and the pension reserve was in it. It meant the workers outside had not been wrong to fear what the sale would leave behind.
A door banged somewhere along the lower corridor.
I stepped between Meredith and the stairwell.
A man appeared at the far end, moving fast, his tie loosened and his face gray with strain. Ian.
Meredith raised the ledger. “You said they took you away.”
“They did.” He glanced over his shoulder. “The guard was sent back to the meeting when Graham called for him. I came through the maintenance passage.”
“You’re not safe here,” I said.
“I know.” Ian’s eyes fixed on the open ledger. “But I can explain every one of those invoices. I approved them. Graham told me they were temporary entries, and I let myself believe him because I didn’t want to lose my job.”
“Will you say that in front of the buyers?” Meredith asked.
His jaw tightened. “Yes. I’ll tell them which invoices had no work behind them, which signatures Graham ordered me to use, and how he told me to move Thomas’s ledger. I won’t pretend I was innocent.”
Meredith held his gaze. “Then don’t leave out your part.”
“I won’t.”
Footsteps struck the stairs above us. Several people, coming down quickly.
Ian flinched. Meredith closed the ledger.
“We take it to the room,” I said.
“No,” she replied. “We take it to the people who need to see it.”
She tucked the ledger against her chest and headed up. I followed with Ian close behind. At the top, the conference-room door stood partly open. Graham’s voice carried through it, smooth again, describing “an unfortunate misunderstanding” to the buyers.
Meredith pushed inside.
Every face turned.
She laid the ledger on the table, open to the page with Graham’s name. “You wanted the complete record,” she said. “Here it is.”
The buyer who had shut his folder leaned forward. Graham’s attorney rose so quickly his chair struck the wall.
Ian stepped in behind us.
“I can explain the invoices,” he said. “I approved them under Graham’s direction. I’ll testify to what I did and what he ordered.”
May you like
Graham stared at the ledger. For one unguarded second, the practiced calm drained from his face.
Then the conference-room doors swung open behind him. Graham saw the ledger in Meredith’s hands—and lunged.
