Chapter 12 - THE EMPLOYEE NOBODY REMEMBERED
The next morning, I visited a retirement home outside Providence.
The guest ledger contained the initials G.B. beside every entry for Room 814. Evelyn identified them as belonging to George Bell, a former night auditor who disappeared from company records after Rebecca’s death.
George was eighty-two and walked with a silver cane.
When I showed him Rebecca’s photograph, he closed his apartment door and locked it.
“I wondered when you’d come.”
“You left the instruction about the key.”
He nodded.
“Your sister made me promise.”
George had watched Rebecca copy transfer records inside Room 814. She told him Noah and Marlene were moving money out of the employee pension reserve to make the company appear stronger before an acquisition.
“She didn’t trust the police,” George said. “The Ashfords donated to half the department.”
“Why didn’t you contact me?”
“I tried.”
He opened a desk drawer and removed twelve unopened envelopes.
Each was addressed to me.
Each had been returned.
The delivery address was wrong by one digit.
Noah had arranged our mail through his executive assistant during the year after Rebecca died.
“He intercepted them,” I whispered.
George handed me a small cassette tape.
“Rebecca recorded everything in that room. She left this with me.”
I found an old player on his bookshelf.
Rebecca’s voice emerged through the static.
She sounded frightened but controlled.
She described the shell accounts, the forged signatures and Marlene’s threats. Then Noah’s voice entered the recording.
“You’re not telling Vivian anything.”
“She deserves the truth.”
“She deserves the life I built for her.”
“You built it with stolen money.”
A chair scraped.
Then Rebecca said something I had never expected.
“Vivian’s baby deserves better than this family.”
The recording ended.
I could not breathe.
When Rebecca died, Noah and I had no children.
Paige was born seven months later.
George lowered his eyes.
“Your sister knew you were pregnant before you did.”
My phone rang.
Paige’s school counselor was calling.
“Mrs. Cross,” she said urgently, “Paige left campus with her father an hour ago.”
May you like
“Where were they going?”
“She said Mr. Cross was taking her to sign a statement against you.”
