Chapter 4 - The Company Behind the Dinner
By midnight, the Reed family had separated into three groups.
Daniel, Lauren, and Ethan returned home with Cooper.
Patricia remained at her house with the younger relatives.
Megan and Chris left with an attorney after agreeing to make themselves available for further questioning.
No arrests were made that night.
There was not yet enough evidence.
Daniel sat at his kitchen table long after Ethan went to bed. Lauren placed a cup of coffee beside him, but he did not drink it.
“You saved him,” Daniel said.
“We don’t know what was on the steak.”
“You saw something and spoke.”
“Too late.”
“Not too late.”
Lauren sat across from him.
“I should have stopped Megan in the kitchen.”
“You did stop her.”
“Only because Ethan noticed the smell.”
Daniel looked toward the hallway.
Ethan had asked to sleep with Cooper beside his bed. The dog now lay across the doorway like a guard.
Daniel’s phone vibrated.
It was a message from the independent auditor.
We need to speak immediately. This may be connected to the Northway payments.
Daniel called.
The auditor, Marcus Lee, answered on the first ring.
“I heard about what happened,” Marcus said. “One of your employees saw the police vehicles at your mother’s house.”
“What did you find?”
“Northway Strategies does not appear to have legitimate operations. Its registered address is a mailbox.”
“Who owns it?”
“The ownership is hidden through several filings, but payments from Northway went into accounts connected to Chris.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“How much?”
“Approximately four hundred and eighty thousand dollars. We are still tracing the rest.”
“Did Megan approve the invoices?”
“Her credentials were used.”
“Could Chris have used them without her knowledge?”
“Possibly. But we found internal messages indicating Megan questioned at least two payments, then approved them after speaking with Chris.”
Daniel remembered Chris confronting him that afternoon.
He had not been asking about the audit out of curiosity.
He had been measuring how much Daniel knew.
Marcus continued.
“There is something else. A board resolution was prepared yesterday.”
“What resolution?”
“To temporarily remove you as chief executive if you became medically unable to perform your duties.”
Daniel’s hand tightened around the phone.
“Who prepared it?”
“The document came from Chris’s office. It named him acting chief executive.”
Lauren heard the final sentence.
Her expression changed.
Daniel ended the call and told her everything.
“They wanted you out of the way before Monday,” she said.
“We don’t know that.”
“Daniel, there was something on your steak. Chris prepared a resolution based on you suddenly becoming medically unable to work.”
Daniel stood and walked toward the window.
The idea sounded impossible.
Yet the evidence formed a line he could no longer ignore.
The missing money.
The audit.
The hidden bottle.
The steak intended for him.
The prepared board resolution.
His phone rang again.
This time, it was Patricia.
“Daniel,” she whispered. “There’s something in your father’s study you need to see.”
“What?”
“A letter.”
“What letter?”
“One Robert wrote before he died.”
“Why haven’t I seen it?”
May you like
Patricia began crying.
“Because Megan found it first.”
