Chương 3
“Someone logged in as me.”
“That appears to be one possibility.”
“One possibility?”
Marcus hesitated.
Eleanor answered for him.
“Another is that your credentials were shared.”
“They weren’t.”
“Are you certain?”
I opened my mouth and stopped.
Three years earlier, during my father’s first hospitalization, Vanessa had needed access to payroll files.
I had sent her a temporary password.
At least I had called it temporary.
I could not remember changing it immediately afterward.
Eleanor saw my face.
“What?”
“I gave Vanessa access once.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
“To what?”
“The internal finance portal.”
Marcus picked up his pen.
“What kind of access?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You need to remember.”
“I was sleeping in a chair at Mass General and payroll was due in six hours.”
“Did you send credentials by text?”
“Maybe.”
“Email?”
“Maybe.”
Marcus did not look judgmental, which somehow made it worse.
“Do you still have the message?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t delete anything.”
“I’m not an idiot.”
The words came out sharper than I intended.
Marcus leaned back.
“No one said you were.”
I looked away.
“Sorry.”
He nodded.
Eleanor opened the laptop.
“Password?”
“Dad changed it.”
Her expression shifted.
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“You tried his usual passwords?”
“Yes.”
Marcus looked at Eleanor.
“Can your client consent to forensic access?”
“He already did in writing.”
“To this device specifically?”
“Yes.”
I looked between them.
“You expected the laptop.”
Eleanor closed the lid again.
“Your father told me there might be information on it that would help us understand the payment approvals.”
“Why didn’t he give it to you himself?”
“He said he wanted you to have it.”
“Why?”
“I asked him.”
“And?”
“He said you would know what mattered.”
I laughed once.
“That sounds generous, except I don’t.”
Eleanor reached for a folder.
“Your father has been trying to solve this while recovering from a stroke.”
The irritation in her voice surprised me.
“He is proud, secretive, and occasionally impossible.”
“That sounds like him.”
“He also believed someone inside the family would panic if they knew he was reviewing the accounts.”
“Vanessa.”
“Maybe.”
“Blake.”
“Maybe.”
“My mother?”
Neither of them answered.
That silence had weight.
I looked at Eleanor.
“You think Mom could be involved?”
“I think Patricia had access to documents bearing Thomas’s signature.”
“So did half his executive team.”
“Correct.”
“Then why the silence?”
“Because your father mentioned finding signed blank forms in the desk at home.”
My throat tightened.
“What forms?”
“Payment authorizations.”
“Blank?”
“Some blank, some partially completed.”
“Why would he sign blank forms?”
Eleanor’s mouth flattened.
“Your father insists he didn’t.”
The room became very quiet.
Marcus turned his pen slowly between his fingers.
I looked down at my own forged signature again.
A memory surfaced without invitation.
My mother sitting at Dad’s desk after his stroke, sorting papers into piles.
Vanessa leaning over her shoulder.
Blake near the window, talking on his phone.
Me standing in the doorway with two coffees, relieved somebody else was handling something for once.
At the time it had looked like family helping.
Now I could not remember who had touched what.
“I need to see the original records,” I said.
“You will.”
“I want the access logs too.”
“You’ll get them.”
“And I want every transfer tied to North Bay.”
Marcus nodded.
“There’s more.”
He pulled out a bank statement and pointed to three entries.
The recipient on each was Whitmore Property Management LLC.
“That’s ours,” I said.
“Correct.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing by itself.”
He pointed lower on the page.
“Money enters Whitmore Property Management from Logistics, then moves out within forty-eight hours.”
“To where?”
“Three destinations.”
He placed another page in front of me.
“One is a contractor working on your sister’s Wellesley house.”
I felt my jaw tighten.
“The second?”
“A private credit account held jointly by Vanessa and Blake.”
“And the third?”
Marcus looked at Eleanor before answering.
“Your mother.”
For a second, I heard nothing.
Not the air conditioner.
Not traffic below the window.
Not even my own breathing.
“How much?”
“Seventy-six thousand dollars.”
“Mom received seventy-six thousand?”
“Over eight months.”
“For what?”
“We don’t know.”
I stood up.
The chair rolled backward and struck the wall.
Eleanor said my name.
I walked to the window.
Down on the street, a man in a green jacket was trying to fold a map while the wind kept opening it.
I watched him fight with the paper because looking at him was easier than looking at the numbers.
“My mother has her own money.”
“Yes.”
“She has more than enough.”
“Yes.”
“So why would she need seventy-six thousand dollars from a property account?”
“We don’t know.”
I turned around.
“Did Dad know?”
Eleanor took a breath.
“He recognized one of the transfers.”
“And?”
“He said he had not authorized it.”
The anger came then, quick and clean.
I reached for my phone.
Eleanor stood.
“Don’t.”
“I’m calling her.”
“No.”
“She just accused me of punishing the family while money was going into her account.”
“You do not know why.”
“I know Dad says he didn’t authorize it.”
“You also know he suffered a stroke, takes medication, and has memory gaps.”
“That doesn’t make the transfer legitimate.”
“No, but it makes certainty dangerous.”
I looked at Marcus.
“What do you think?”
“I think the pattern needs explaining.”
“That’s accountant language for what?”
“For I don’t know yet.”
My phone buzzed in my hand.
A message from Blake.
We need to talk before Vanessa does something stupid.
I showed it to Eleanor.
She read it twice.
“Do not reply.”
Another message appeared.
I know what the transfers were for.
Marcus stood.
Eleanor reached toward my phone.
“Daniel.”
I pulled it back.
A third message arrived before either of them could speak.
Your father was going to tell you, but Patricia made him promise not to.
I read the sentence twice.
Then Blake sent one more.
May you like
It wasn’t Vanessa who started this.
I stared at Blake’s last message until the words lost their shape.
