Chapter 3 - THE FIRST ACCOUNT THAT DIDN'T ADD UP
Genevieve didn't go to Napa.
At 7:10 the next morning, she changed the penthouse access code.
At 7:18, she removed Julian from the household credit card.
At 7:32, she called Mara Chen, the controller at Alder Row Hospitality.
By 8:00, Julian had texted her fourteen times.
She didn't answer.
Mara did.
“I was wondering when you'd call.”
Genevieve stood in the kitchen overlooking a gray San Francisco Bay.
“What does that mean?”
A pause.
“Can we not do this on your personal phone?”
By nine, Genevieve was sitting inside the conference room of a small forensic-accounting firm near the Embarcadero.
She had chosen them because they had no existing relationship with Alder Row.
That decision alone would infuriate Eleanor.
Family problems stayed inside the family.
That had been one of Eleanor's rules for as long as Genevieve could remember.
It was also becoming the family's most expensive habit.
Mara arrived carrying no files.
Only a legal pad.
“I can tell you what I remember,” she said. “I can't give you company records without authorization.”
Genevieve respected that.
“What do you remember?”
“North Pier Design Services.”
The name meant nothing.
Mara continued.
“They started billing the Napa Vista project ten months ago. Brand consulting. Procurement coordination. Development support. Different descriptions.”
“How much?”
“Enough that I started asking questions.”
Genevieve felt the baby shift under her ribs.
“And?”
“Your mother approved the invoices.”
That surprised her more than Julian's name would have.
“Personally?”
“Three times.”
Mara looked uncomfortable.
“The rest went through Julian's authority.”
Julian's role at Alder Row had started as temporary. He'd spent years developing boutique residential properties and had strong relationships with contractors. When the Napa Vista renovation fell behind schedule, Eleanor had asked him to help.
Genevieve had supported it.
That was the part she hated remembering.
She had been tired of mediating between Julian and her family. Giving him a legitimate role had seemed like a way to reduce the resentment he carried about being treated as “Genevieve Alden's husband.”
Now Mara wrote three numbers on the legal pad.
$47,500.
$49,200.
$48,900.
Genevieve stared at them.
“Why are they all under fifty?”
“That was our secondary approval threshold.”
Anything above $50,000 required two executives.
Anything below could be approved by the project lead.
Julian.
“How many invoices?”
Mara looked at her.
“Twenty-seven.”
Genevieve leaned back.
Nearly $1.2 million.
“Did North Pier actually do the work?”
“Somebody did some of it.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“No.”
Mara rubbed her thumb against the edge of the pad.
“And there's something else.”
Eleven months earlier—the week the silver insignia disappeared—Mara had noticed a handwritten notation attached to a North Pier onboarding form.
She remembered it because handwriting was unusual in their system.
Two words.
Legacy vendor.
Initialed E.A.
Eleanor Alden.
Genevieve's mother had told her Julian entered Cabinet Three for insurance inventory.
Cabinet Three contained old vendor formations.
“Did you ask my mother about it?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
Mara met her eyes.
“She told me North Pier existed before Julian joined the project.”
Genevieve went still.
That didn't clear Julian.
It made everything worse.
If North Pier predated Julian, then the questionable payments hadn't begun with him.
And if Eleanor knew that, Genevieve's mother hadn't merely protected her son-in-law.
She had protected the vendor.
Genevieve opened her phone.
There was one person who could legally authorize access to the historical records without involving the entire board.
Her.
As beneficiary representative and governance committee member, she had inspection rights under the family company's operating agreement.
She emailed Alder Row's outside corporate counsel.
For once, she copied nobody in her family.
By lunchtime, Julian had stopped texting.
At 12:16, one final message arrived.
Whatever Mara told you, she's wrong.
Genevieve hadn't told Julian she'd met Mara.
She turned the phone toward the forensic accountant.
He read the message twice.
Then he said, “Don't respond.”
May you like
Genevieve didn't.
She was too busy wondering who had already told Julian where she'd gone.
