Chapter 3

At four that afternoon, Grant made his move.

He did not come to my office. He had his secretary deliver a payment request instead.

It listed a $165,000 venue deposit for the Southside project.

The recipient was not one of our vendors. It was a company called Keystone Consulting.

Maya pulled the corporate filings and set them on my desk.

"Keystone's registered agent was Mr. Parker's college roommate. Its business address is a retail unit owned by Mr. Parker."

"Did Daniel sign?"

"He refused. Mr. Parker spent twenty minutes shouting in Accounting and claimed you had given verbal approval."

I studied the application.

The forged signature read Lena Shaw, but the capital S curved in the opposite direction from mine.

"Preserve the original and notify Internal Audit."

Maya opened a recording on her phone.

Grant's voice filled the room.

"My wife has been suspended, and the whole project is about to collapse. Daniel, if you don't sign, you'll be out the door with her."

Daniel answered, "Without the chairman's authorization, I will not release the funds."

Grant swore. A document slapped against a desk.

I sent the recording to the company's outside counsel, Michael Sullivan.

"The application and recording establish intent," he said over the phone. "Once the money actually leaves the company, the legal exposure changes."

"It will leave."

"You're sure?"

"He has to buy Linda's way out."

I ended the call and had Maya reject the request for the third time.

At seven, Grant called.

"Lena, why did you reject the venue deposit?"

"Wrong recipient."

"The vendor changed accounts. I negotiated it myself."

"Send me the contract."

Silence held for several seconds.

"You're no longer project lead. You don't have the authority to review it."

"Then let Bennett review it."

He gave a cold laugh.

"You think Bennett will protect you forever? If the Southside bid gets delayed, the company loses millions. Once I release that video of you abusing Mom, security won't even let you through the front door."

"Try it."

"Quit pretending you're calm. Mom shredded your files. What are you taking to tomorrow's presentation?"

I said nothing.

After he hung up, I opened my laptop and pulled up the cloud backup of the bid package.

Every version was intact.

I did not give Grant the backup or immediately forward it to Bennett. Under the bidding protocol, the project lead had to unlock the encrypted proposal in person fifteen minutes before the presentation.

Grant did not know that.

He also did not know that the pages Linda destroyed were never my only copy. They were printouts I had deliberately left in my home office.

At nine, Daniel sent me a message.

Mr. Parker bypassed secondary review. Funds transferred to Keystone Consulting.

The attachment was a transaction receipt. Grant's signature filled the approval box.

I forwarded it to Michael, then called Bennett.

"Call an emergency board meeting for ten tomorrow morning. Have Finance, Legal, and HR attend."

"What are you planning to do with Grant?"

"Let him finish saying everything he wants to say."

"And if he brings your mother-in-law to make a scene?"

"Even better."

I opened the recording from our home security system.

Linda sat on the couch while Grant knelt in front of her to put on her shoes. She ate caviar by the spoonful and berated him for being useless.

Then she looked directly at the camera.

"Lena, tomorrow I'm coming to your office to expose you. Everyone will know you locked your own mother-in-law up like a criminal!"

I paused the video.

She did not know that our cameras continuously uploaded sound and video to the cloud.

And she did not know that the sentence she was so eager for everyone to hear would open the first door for me.