Chapter 5 - Why Thomas Fired His Son-in-Law
Thomas waited until Hannah asked.
That mattered.
On the second night after Eli’s birth, Thomas sat beside the hospital window while Hannah held a sleeping newborn against her chest.
“Derek was operations manager for three years,” he began.
Hannah nodded.
She knew that part.
Her father’s company built custom houses around Mecklenburg County and Lake Norman. Derek had started in purchasing before Thomas promoted him.
Hannah had been proud.
“He was good at it,” Thomas said.
“Was?”
“At first.”
Thomas explained that six months earlier the company’s bookkeeper noticed several supplier reimbursements that did not reconcile.
Nothing enormous.
A few thousand here.
Another few thousand there.
Construction billing could be messy.
Thomas initially assumed mistakes.
Then he found duplicate reimbursements submitted by Derek for expenses already paid directly by the company.
“How much?”
Thomas hesitated.
“Just over forty thousand dollars by the time we finished reviewing it.”
Hannah stared at him.
“Forty thousand?”
“Across fourteen months.”
“You told me he resigned.”
“He told you that.”
“You let him.”
Thomas’s expression tightened.
“I made him repay part of it. We terminated him. I should have told you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“He begged me not to.”
Hannah actually laughed.
The sound woke Eli.
She soothed him before continuing.
“My husband steals from you and asks you not to tell me, so you just... don’t?”
“It wasn’t that simple.”
“It sounds extremely simple.”
Thomas looked down.
“Derek said you were having complications.”
Hannah went still.
“What complications?”
“He said your blood pressure was unstable.”
“My blood pressure was fine until this week.”
Thomas closed his eyes briefly.
“He told me your doctor had warned against severe stress.”
A new anger replaced the old one.
“He used the baby.”
“Yes.”
“And you believed him.”
“Yes.”
Thomas did not defend himself.
That made Hannah angrier.
“I thought I was protecting you,” he said.
“You were protecting yourself from an ugly conversation.”
Thomas absorbed the sentence.
Maybe because it was true.
He had spent Hannah’s childhood smoothing problems with money and silence.
After her mother died, he became even worse.
If a conflict threatened the family, Thomas tried to contain it rather than expose it.
Derek had learned that.
“What happened to the rest of the money?”
Thomas shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“Why was he taking it?”
“He said personal debt.”
“What debt?”
“He wouldn’t explain.”
Hannah remembered the past six months differently now.
Derek suddenly becoming obsessed with money.
Derek criticizing every grocery receipt.
Derek telling her maternity leave was “another expense.”
Derek getting angry when she ordered a new crib instead of accepting a used one.
She had assumed losing his salary frightened him.
But he had told her he chose to leave.
He had been lying about both the income and the reason it disappeared.
Thomas pulled an envelope from his bag.
“I brought the termination documents.”
Hannah did not take them.
“Keep them.”
“You don’t want to read them?”
“I do.”
She looked at Eli.
May you like
“But first I want my bank statements.”
Because if Derek had hidden forty thousand dollars from one family, Hannah needed to know what he had hidden from his own.
