Chương 10
There she was.
For one strange second, I almost felt relieved.
Angry Eleanor was familiar.
Angry Eleanor meant chairs and casseroles and insults disguised as etiquette.
It meant a world I knew how to survive.
Then she said, “He told me you were compensated.”
“For what?”
“The house.”
I stopped breathing.
“What house?”
“My house.”
Tessa looked over.
I turned away from her.
“Compensated how?”
“With equity.”
“In what?”
“The company.”
My mouth went dry.
“I own no equity in Cole Family Catering.”
Eleanor said nothing.
“Eleanor?”
“That’s not true.”
“It is.”
“No.”
Her voice grew thin.
“Richard said you took fifteen percent after you paid the taxes.”
“I did not.”
“He showed me papers.”
“What papers?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you sign anything?”
A long pause.
“Some refinancing documents.”
“When?”
“Last year.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
“Did you read them?”
“That is insulting.”
“Did you?”
“Richard explained them.”
That meant no.
“What did he say you were signing?”
“That the house could support the company temporarily.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Did you receive copies?”
“I assume so.”
“Assume or know?”
“Stop interrogating me.”
I closed my eyes.
“I’m trying to find out whether your house is at risk.”
That silenced her.
When she spoke again, her voice was barely audible.
“Richard said you removed it.”
“Removed what?”
“The collateral.”
My stomach dropped.
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“I revoked my own guarantees.”
“No.”
“He said you pulled the house too.”
“I do not have authority to release your property.”
“He said you did.”
“Eleanor, listen to me.”
I spoke slowly now.
“If your house was pledged as collateral, only the lender and the authorized parties under those documents can modify that arrangement.”
She breathed into the phone.
“He said you controlled everything.”
“No.”
“You always controlled the money.”
“No.”
“You paid for everything.”
“That is not the same thing.”
She did not answer.
Then, suddenly, she began to cry.
Not elegantly.
Not quietly.
The sound was raw and furious.
“I trusted him.”
I sat down.
For nine years, I had wanted Eleanor to admit that Richard was responsible for something.
I had imagined satisfaction.
There was none.
Only a tired woman crying into her son’s phone.
“What do I do?”
It was the first time she had ever asked me that without attaching an order.
“Find every document you signed.”
“I don’t know where they are.”
“Look.”
“He kept everything.”
“Then check your email.”
“I don’t use email for legal papers.”
“Then check drawers, filing cabinets, whatever you have.”
“I have a box.”
“Good.”
“Claire.”
“Yes?”
“If my house is gone—”
“It is not gone this morning.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No.”
I swallowed.
“I don’t.”
Her crying slowed.
“I said terrible things to you yesterday.”
I looked out the kitchen window.
A neighbor in a red jacket was scraping frost from a windshield.
“Yes.”
“I was upset.”
I almost laughed.
Eleanor always treated cruelty like weather.
Something that simply arrived.
“I’m not discussing yesterday right now.”
She went quiet.
Then she whispered, “He took the blue folder.”
“What blue folder?”
“The one from the refinancing.”
My spine straightened.
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was it there last night?”
“Yes.”
“You saw it?”
“Yes.”
“And now?”
“Gone.”
I stood.
“Eleanor, tell Doug not to touch anything else.”
“What?”
“Do not clean up his room, his papers, nothing.”
“You think—”
“I think Naomi needs to know.”
I ended the call and called her.
This time she answered with, “What happened now?”
“Richard may have taken Eleanor’s refinancing documents.”
Another pause.
“Claire.”
“Yes?”
“Your accountant just emailed me.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“And?”
“He found three vendor payments totaling just over four hundred thousand dollars that don’t match any vendor in the company’s tax records.”
The kitchen seemed to tilt slightly.
“Where did they go?”
“He’s tracing them.”
I closed my eyes.
Naomi continued.
“But one of the destination accounts has a name.”
I waited.
“What name?”
“R. Cole Holdings.”
I repeated the name silently.
R. Cole Holdings.
It sounded bland enough to disappear inside a stack of paperwork.
“What is it?”
“That is what we are finding out.”
“Is it Richard?”
“Maybe.”
“Naomi.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
I started pacing between Tessa’s refrigerator and the kitchen table.
“If he moved four hundred thousand dollars through some company with his initial on it, then—”
“Claire.”
Her tone stopped me.
“Do not jump from suspicious to proven.”
I pressed my lips together.
“Fine.”
“The accountant found the payments because the vendor names on the catering company’s ledger did not match the tax identification records connected to the destination accounts.”
“Meaning somebody labeled them as vendors.”
“Yes.”
“But they weren’t.”
“Not in the normal sense.”
“What does that mean?”
“One appears to be an entity registered in Virginia.”
“R. Cole Holdings.”
“Yes.”
“And the others?”
“Still being traced.”
I gripped the back of a chair.
“When were the payments?”
“Spread over fourteen months.”
That was worse somehow.
Not one panicked decision.
A pattern.
“Amounts?”
“One hundred twenty thousand, one hundred fifty-five thousand, and one hundred thirty-two thousand.”
I did the arithmetic automatically.
“Four hundred seven.”
“Yes.”
“What were they described as?”
“Equipment leasing.”
My eyes moved toward nothing.
Cole Family Catering owned most of its kitchen equipment.
I knew because I had helped refinance it after Richard’s expansion failed.
“What equipment?”
“That is one of the questions.”
“He never mentioned leasing anything that expensive.”
“He may have leased equipment without telling you.”
“He asked me before replacing a refrigeration compressor.”
Naomi did not answer.
I heard the implication anyway.
A man who complained about eight thousand dollars in repairs had somehow spent more than four hundred thousand on equipment leases.
“Can you check the entity registration?”
“We already are.”
“How long?”
“Claire.”
“I know.”
I forced myself to stop.
“Facts.”
“Exactly.”
Tessa set a plate of toast on the table.
I shook my head.
She pointed at it.
I sat.
Naomi continued.
“I need something from you.”
May you like
“What?”
“Think carefully about any time Richard asked you to sign company paperwork without Naomi reviewing it.”
