Chapter 7 - The Woman Who Kept Copies
Michael stared at the photograph of Lily until Elena pulled it from his hand.
“Call the police.”
Rachel Boone appeared before he could.
She stepped from the hallway holding a baseball bat.
“Who are you?”
Michael raised both hands.
“Michael Sterling.”
Rachel laughed in disbelief.
“That’s supposed to make me feel safer?”
Elena stepped forward.
“Rachel.”
The bat lowered.
“Elena?”
The two women stared at each other.
Then Rachel began crying.
Police arrived fifteen minutes later.
Rachel explained that she had come home to find the house searched but nothing obvious missing.
“Someone wanted me scared,” she said.
Michael pointed to the photograph.
“Join the club.”
Rachel looked at Lily’s picture.
“They’ve been watching you too.”
“Who?”
“You already know.”
Michael waited.
Rachel sat at the table.
“I worked under Sterling Development’s controller during the Saint Adrian renovation.”
“Luis found duplicate invoices.”
“Yes.”
“Blackstone?”
Rachel nodded.
“Blackstone was one of several.”
“Who approved the payments?”
“On paper? You.”
Michael’s stomach tightened.
“But?”
“Your approval tokens were generated from an executive authorization system.”
Claire had explained that system. Senior assistants could prepare approval batches, but Michael was supposed to authorize them personally.
“Who had access?”
Rachel looked at him.
“Vanessa Cole.”
Vanessa’s maiden name.
Michael sat slowly.
Rachel continued.
“She worked for Patricia first. Patricia moved her into your office.”
Michael remembered Patricia praising Vanessa’s intelligence.
Promoting her.
Encouraging Michael to take Vanessa to donor dinners.
Even teasing him when attraction developed.
His marriage had not merely been approved by his mother.
It had been engineered.
“Why?”
“To control your approvals.”
The room went quiet.
Rachel pulled an old USB drive from behind a loose kitchen baseboard.
“I kept copies.”
Elena stared.
“All these years?”
“I thought they’d come after me if they knew.”
“Why didn’t you give them to police?”
“I tried to give them to an attorney.”
“What happened?”
“He told me the documents weren’t enough.”
“What attorney?”
Rachel looked uncomfortable.
“Thomas Reed.”
Sterling Development’s current general counsel.
Michael felt anger burn through him.
Thomas had been in the boardroom when Michael was suspended.
“Thomas buried it.”
Rachel nodded.
The USB contained archived emails.
One thread was devastating.
Vanessa wrote to Patricia:
MS approval token active. Batch can be processed until 18:00.
Patricia replied:
Run Saint Adrian payments first.
Another email:
Luis Ruiz is asking questions.
Patricia:
Have HR document performance issues.
Vanessa:
And Rachel?
Patricia:
She’ll follow once Luis is discredited.
Elena covered her mouth.
Michael could not look at her.
His digital signature appeared on the dismissal documents.
He had approved them without reading deeply.
His negligence had been their weapon.
“I signed Luis’s termination,” he said.
Elena’s eyes filled.
“I know.”
“I could say I didn’t know.”
“You already did.”
“And it’s still true.”
“Truth doesn’t restore six years.”
“No.”
Michael looked at her.
“But maybe it can stop another six.”
Rachel had one more email.
Dated two months before Michael and Vanessa began dating.
Patricia to Vanessa:
He trusts women who appear to challenge me. Don’t agree with me too often around him.
Vanessa replied:
Understood.
Michael stood abruptly.
He walked outside into the cold.
Elena followed.
“You should sit down.”
“I married a strategy.”
He laughed once.
“She used to argue with my mother at dinner. I admired that.”
Elena said nothing.
“She knew what books I liked.”
“They researched you.”
“She knew I hated people who flattered me.”
“So she didn’t flatter you.”
Michael turned.
“You sound like you understand.”
“I understand manipulation.”
He looked toward the house.
“My daughter exists because of a plan.”
Elena’s expression sharpened.
“No.”
Michael looked at her.
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Make Lily part of Vanessa’s crime. Lily did nothing.”
The words struck him.
Michael closed his eyes.
“You’re right.”
Elena crossed her arms.
“You keep making the same mistake.”
“Which one?”
“You think everything is about what was done to you.”
Michael almost argued.
Then stopped.
Luis.
Elena.
Rachel.
Lily.
Employees Michael had never known.
Patricia’s scheme was larger than his betrayal.
That evening, Andrew arranged for Rachel to meet investigators.
But before they left Fort Collins, Michael received a call from Daniel.
His brother sounded shaken.
“Did you send me something?”
“No.”
“A package came to my apartment.”
“What was inside?”
“Copies of emails.”
Michael’s heartbeat quickened.
“Which emails?”
“Mom and Vanessa.”
Daniel went silent.
Michael waited.
Then Daniel said, “Tell me they’re fake.”
“They’re not.”
Another silence.
Finally:
“I need to meet you.”
“Come to Andrew’s office.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Mom tracks my company car.”
Michael closed his eyes.
“Where?”
Daniel named an underground parking garage near Union Station.
“I’ll be there in forty minutes.”
Michael told Andrew.
Andrew protested.
Michael went anyway.
When he entered the garage, Daniel was waiting between two concrete pillars.
He looked furious and afraid.
“You knew she was corrupt?”
“I learned yesterday.”
Daniel shoved the emails against Michael’s chest.
“She told me Dad stole from the company.”
“She lied.”
Daniel paced.
“She said you were covering it.”
“She lied.”
“She said if I helped remove you, I could finally save Sterling.”
Michael watched him.
“And you believed her.”
Daniel stopped.
“For once, I wanted her to choose me.”
There it was.
The oldest wound in the Sterling family.
Michael’s voice softened.
“She didn’t choose you.”
Daniel laughed bitterly.
“No. She used me too.”
He reached inside his coat.
“I took this from her office.”
A small black ledger.
Before Michael could open it, headlights appeared at the far end of the garage.
Daniel’s face changed.
“That’s her driver.”
May you like
The SUV accelerated toward them.
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