Chapter 12 - THE NAME IN THE LEDGER
Naomi arrived at the center before sunrise.
She carried a sealed evidence envelope and instructed Elena, Brianna, and Robert to meet her in the conference room.
“The information I’m about to show you was attached to Victor Hale’s cooperation agreement,” she said. “It was never introduced at trial because investigators could not confirm it.”
She removed a photocopied page from the envelope.
It had been taken from the black ledger recovered on Brianna’s wedding day.
Elena recognized Daniel’s handwriting immediately.
Five account names appeared in a numbered column.
Northbridge Events Consulting.
Westbridge Development Partners.
Mercer Hospitality Holdings.
Hale Strategic Services.
Crownstead Asset Protection.
Beside each company was a series of transfers, initials, and coded payment descriptions.
At the bottom of the page, Daniel had written:
Sixth reserve held separately. Access through L.C.
“Who is L.C.?” Brianna asked.
“We never determined that,” Naomi replied.
Elena examined the page.
“Why wasn’t this in the evidence we reviewed?”
“Because Victor claimed the note referred to a company that was never created. Daniel denied writing it. Celeste refused to answer questions.”
“And Marcus?”
“He said he had never heard of Crownstead.”
Robert leaned back in his chair.
“You believed them?”
“No,” Naomi said. “But suspicion is not proof.”
She placed Claire’s forged authorization beside the ledger page.
The format was almost identical to the document used to transfer Elena’s three hundred thousand dollars.
The spacing.
The legal language.
Even the position of the signature box.
Someone had reused the same template.
Brianna stared at it.
“This means someone from the original scheme is still operating.”
“Or someone obtained their files,” Naomi said.
Elena pointed to the initials.
“L.C. could be a person.”
“Possibly.”
Brianna’s expression changed.
“What?”
“My mother had a personal assistant named Lydia Crane.”
Elena remembered her.
Lydia had worked for Celeste for almost twenty years. She managed household accounts, charity invitations, travel arrangements, and private correspondence.
She had been at the wedding.
Yet her name had barely appeared in the investigation.
“Was she interviewed?” Elena asked.
Naomi opened another folder.
“Twice. She claimed she knew nothing about Mercer Holdings and handled only social matters.”
“That was a lie,” Brianna said. “My mother trusted Lydia with everything.”
Naomi wrote the name down.
“Where is she now?”
Brianna searched on her phone.
There were no current employment records.
No public address.
No recent photographs.
Lydia Crane seemed to have vanished three weeks after the wedding.
Claire’s phone suddenly rang on the conference table.
Her husband’s name appeared on the screen.
She declined the call.
A message arrived immediately.
COME HOME. DO NOT SPEAK TO ELENA VALE AGAIN.
Claire stared at the words.
“I never told him where I was.”
Elena looked toward the center’s front windows.
May you like
Across the street, a black sedan was parked beneath a streetlight.
Its engine was running.
