Chapter 5 - White Pine Advisory
Derek slept less than two hours.
At six in the morning, he called Benjamin Cole.
“Find White Pine Advisory.”
Benjamin sighed.
“Good morning to you too.”
“Can you?”
“Legally?”
“Yes.”
“Then give me an hour.”
Derek did not call Serena.
He wanted to.
He wanted to send the photograph and demand an explanation.
Instead he stared at it until disgust replaced rage.
Eleven months.
Serena and Grant had been sleeping together for almost a year.
Perhaps longer.
Caleb entered the kitchen wearing dinosaur pajamas.
“Why are you awake?”
Derek locked his phone.
“Work.”
Caleb climbed onto a stool.
“Is Serena coming?”
“No.”
Derek poured cereal.
Caleb watched him.
“You’re sad.”
“I’m okay.”
Caleb’s expression sharpened.
“That’s what you say when you’re not.”
Derek stopped.
Children remembered everything adults thought they had hidden.
“You’re right.”
“Did Serena do something else?”
Derek considered lying.
Instead he said, “I learned she may have been keeping secrets from me.”
“About Frostline?”
“Maybe.”
Caleb ate silently.
Then said, “She used to go into your office.”
Derek looked up.
“When?”
“When you traveled.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw her.”
“Did she take anything?”
Caleb shrugged.
“Papers.”
“What papers?”
“Blue folders.”
Derek’s home office used blue folders for trust and property documents.
His appetite disappeared.
At eight, Benjamin called.
“White Pine Advisory LLC. Delaware entity. Registered eighteen months ago.”
“Owner?”
“Hidden behind a registered-agent service.”
“Banking?”
“I can’t get that without legal process.”
“Business?”
“Consulting.”
“That means nothing.”
“Usually.”
Benjamin paused.
“There’s more. White Pine received a three-million-dollar payment last December.”
“From who?”
“Summit Crest Capital.”
Derek stood.
Three million.
Summit Crest was the private equity group pushing the Frostline development.
“What was it labeled?”
“Project advisory retainer.”
“White Pine never advised Hale Mountain.”
“I know.”
“Who told you this?”
“A contact at Summit Crest confirmed the transfer existed but not the beneficial owner.”
Derek stared at the photograph of Grant and Serena.
Three million dollars.
An affair.
A development needing Caleb’s land.
The pieces were beginning to touch.
At ten, the Hale Mountain board placed Derek on temporary administrative leave.
The public video of him striking Mason had spread nationally overnight.
He deserved scrutiny.
What surprised him was who proposed the suspension.
Grant Mercer.
The vote passed six to three.
Grant became acting CEO.
Serena sent Derek a message fifteen minutes later.
You’re losing everything because you believe a frightened child and a ski instructor.
Derek read it twice.
Then replied.
I believe the video.
Her answer came immediately.
You always were easy to manipulate when you felt guilty.
He did not respond.
At noon, Derek, Mason, Olivia, Deputy Ortiz, and Margaret Sloan traveled by snowcat toward Frostline Ridge.
Margaret was sixty-one, a former probate attorney and independent trustee under Emily’s estate plan.
She had gray hair, sharp eyes, and no patience for Derek’s status.
“You should have called me six months ago when Summit Crest approached you,” she said.
“I told them Frostline wasn’t mine.”
“You also failed to tell me your CFO had renewed contact.”
“I didn’t know.”
Margaret looked at him.
“You don’t know too many things for a man who prides himself on control.”
Mason coughed to hide a laugh.
Derek ignored him.
The old survey cabin sat half-buried beneath snow near a stand of pines.
Mason cleared the door.
Caleb’s blue key opened a steel lockbox bolted beneath a workbench.
Inside were three items.
A flash drive.
A notebook.
And a copy of a consulting proposal dated four years earlier.
Prepared by Grant Mercer.
It proposed a luxury road through Frostline.
Emily had written across the front in red ink:
NO.
Then beneath it:
WHY IS GRANT OFFERING ME MONEY PERSONALLY?
Derek felt cold.
Margaret opened the notebook.
Emily’s handwriting filled the pages.
Dates.
Amounts.
Names.
Payments routed through contractors.
Unexplained overbilling at three Hale Mountain properties.
Millions.
Mason pointed to one entry.
WHITE PINE?
The company had not existed when Emily wrote the notebook.
But below the words Emily had drawn a pine tree inside a circle.
Derek frowned.
“What is that?”
Margaret turned several pages.
Same symbol.
Beside payments connected to a vendor called Alpine Mechanical Group.
Benjamin called while they were still inside the cabin.
“I found White Pine’s manager.”
Derek stepped outside.
“Who?”
“The manager is an attorney acting as nominee.”
“Beneficial owner?”
“He refused to say.”
“Then why call?”
“Because I found the formation paperwork’s emergency contact.”
Derek waited.
May you like
Benjamin’s voice hardened.
“Serena Hale.”
