Chapter 9 - The Version Marianne Never Saw
The board’s outside advisor obtained the archived meeting packet from the company’s document system.
The software retained earlier versions because the April 8 meeting record had been part of the refinance package.
Elisa received access through counsel.
The first draft was time-stamped 1:53 p.m.
Twenty-four minutes before her credentials were used.
It did not say Elisa had approved anything.
Instead it read:
Emergency payoff authorized by Preston Caradonna and initiated by Lucinda Caradonna, subject to treasurer ratification.
Elisa read the sentence repeatedly.
The original plan had apparently been to move the money first and ask her to ratify it later.
Still wrong.
But very different from claiming she had already approved it.
Then she opened the final version.
Time-stamped 6:42 p.m.
The wording had changed:
Treasurer Elisa Caradonna verbally authorized the reserve transfer prior to initiation.
The document history identified Lucinda as the editor.
Preston had electronically approved the revision twelve minutes later.
Marianne signed the printed version two days after that.
Sebastian sat beside Elisa at the kitchen table as she compared both copies.
“Your mother never saw the first version.”
“No.”
“She saw the version that made you responsible.”
“Yes.”
That answered one question.
It also made another fact almost impossible to explain.
Marianne’s letter six months later sounded completely sincere.
She had not written like a woman helping to cover a conspiracy.
She had written like a mother furious that her daughter refused to admit something the documents appeared to prove.
The discovery should have cleared Marianne.
Instead it created one last contradiction.
Why had Marianne placed the old loan papers in a wax-sealed envelope if she believed the official story?
Elisa called the storage company that had managed Marianne’s belongings after her death.
The company still had an inventory spreadsheet.
The ceramic wedding vase had been listed among the items removed from Marianne’s Jamestown house.
Not Dominic’s office.
Not the Caradonna House storage room.
Marianne’s house.
The vase had been there until three years ago.
After Marianne died, Lucinda personally requested that it be returned to the ballroom because it was a “family wedding piece.”
Lucinda had handled it.
She had almost certainly known the envelope was inside.
Now Elisa understood why her sister had attacked Sebastian at the wedding.
But not why Lucinda had preserved the evidence for three years instead of destroying it.
Then Nora called.
The board system had one more archived item.
An email attached to the April 8 packet.
May you like
It had never been included in the audit summary.
And its timestamp was earlier than the transfer.
