Chapter 4 - THE SIGNATURES IN HER NAME
Madison’s accountant arrived after sunset carrying a laptop and three years of printed ledgers.
Tessa Monroe had worked with Madison since the company was run from a spare bedroom filled with fabric samples and shipping boxes. She usually wore bright earrings and spoke too quickly. That night, she removed her glasses twice before saying anything.
“I thought Preston had your permission.”
“For what?”
Tessa turned the screen.
Over eighteen months, Preston had transferred company funds into a consulting firm called North Pine Strategic. The invoices described supply-chain analysis, expansion planning, and insurance restructuring.
Madison had never heard of the company.
The total was $2.37 million.
“That’s impossible,” she said. “We never had that much cash.”
“He opened a line of credit against the company’s inventory and receivables. Your personal guarantee is on it.”
Madison stared at the signature.
It looked like hers until the final upward stroke. Preston always made that stroke too long when he signed birthday cards on her behalf.
Richard asked, “Who owns North Pine?”
“The public filing names a registered agent,” Tessa said. “The bank account is harder.”
Detective Bishop leaned over the screen. “We’ll subpoena it.”
Madison thought of Vanessa’s smooth assurances about refinancing, the way she had always brought documents already marked with yellow tabs. Sign here. Initial there. Preston has explained the rest.
Madison had signed some.
Not all.
“What happens to my employees?” she asked.
Tessa hesitated. “Payroll clears Friday. After that, I don’t know.”
The cost of investigating was no longer abstract. Eleven families could lose rent money, health insurance, or child-care payments because Madison had handed her husband the keys to the company.
Bishop warned her that contacting staff might reveal she was alive. Richard offered to cover payroll personally.
Madison refused.
“You don’t get to arrive with a helicopter and buy your way into being my father.”
Richard absorbed the words without defending himself.
Tessa closed the laptop. “There is one thing. Preston ordered me to delay the annual audit until after the baby was born.”
“Why?”
“He said you were too fragile to handle bad news.”
Madison looked toward Caleb’s incubator.
The audit had been scheduled for Monday.
Preston had driven her to Ravenstone on Saturday night.
Bishop’s phone rang. She listened, then turned toward them.
The bank had identified the owner of North Pine Strategic.
Vanessa Cole.
The woman at the cliff was not simply Preston’s mistress.
May you like
She had been receiving stolen money from Madison’s company for a year and a half.
And three days before the attempted murder, Vanessa had withdrawn almost all of it.
