Chapter 6 - The Nine O'Clock Meeting
At eight-forty-five the next morning, Evelyn Vance arrived at Graves Estate.
She stepped out of her silver Mercedes-Benz sedan near the administrative wing, looking as pristine and immaculate as ever. She wore a tailored grey wool skirt suit, black leather pumps, and a silk scarf draped elegantly over her shoulders. She carried a sleek leather briefcase containing her monthly financial reports.
As she walked down the stone corridor toward the main dining hall, she noticed something unusual.
The heavy brass doors leading to the accounting offices were locked. Standing beside them was Samuel Wilson, wearing his formal estate manager's uniform, his arms crossed tightly over his chest.
Evelyn stopped, frowning slightly as she adjusted her briefcase strap.
"Samuel," she said, her voice sharp and authoritative. "Why are the administrative doors locked? I need to retrieve the physical ledger printouts before my meeting with Mr. Graves."
Samuel looked at her, his gray eyes completely devoid of warmth. "The administrative wing is undergoing a scheduled security audit, Mrs. Vance."
"A security audit?" Evelyn sneered, her brow furrowing in irritation. "Who authorized a security audit on a Friday morning? I am the Director of Financial Administration! I should have been notified forty-eight hours in advance!"
"The order came directly from Mr. Graves," Samuel replied calmly. "He requested that you proceed directly to the main dining room for your budget review."
Evelyn stared at Samuel for a long, tense moment. Something in his tone—a cold, unyielding confidence she had never heard from him before—made her eyes narrow.
"Very well," she said coldly, turning on her heel. "I will discuss this clear breach of protocol with Alex myself."
She walked briskly up the grand staircase toward the dining hall, her heels clicking sharply against the marble floors.
Inside the dining hall, the long thirty-foot mahogany table had been cleared of all dinner settings.
I sat at the far end of the table, dressed in a dark charcoal suit, a thin silver pen resting between my fingers. To my left sat Daniel Reed. To my right sat two men in dark suits whom Evelyn did not recognize—Detective Vance and his senior investigative partner from the SBI.
When Evelyn pushed open the heavy double doors and walked into the room, she stopped dead in her tracks.
She looked at the two strangers sitting beside me, then at Daniel, and finally at me. Her sharp financial instincts, honed over thirty years in corporate management, immediately signaled danger.
"Alex," she said, quickly replacing her frown with a polished, professional smile. "I didn't realize we were having guests for the monthly review. Had Daniel informed me, I would have prepared additional copies of the quarterly summaries."
"Sit down, Evelyn," I said quietly.
She hesitated, her eyes flicking toward the two detectives before she walked over and took a seat opposite Daniel, setting her leather briefcase on the table.
"Is there a problem?" she asked, her voice steady, though her fingers tightened slightly around the handle of her briefcase. "Samuel mentioned something about a security audit in accounting?"
"Open your briefcase, Evelyn," I said. "Pull out the monthly medical expenditure report for Graves Estate."
Evelyn blinked, her smile faltering for a fraction of a second. "The medical expenditure report? Alex, those are routine administrative records. They're included in Section 4 of the general operational ledger—"
"Pull out the document, Evelyn," I repeated, my tone dropping into that dark, lethal baritone that left no room for debate.
Slowly, deliberately, Evelyn unclasped her briefcase and pulled out a blue paper folder, sliding it across the polished mahogany table toward me.
I didn't touch it.
"Read page three to me," I said.
Evelyn opened her copy of the file, her eyes scanning down the page. "Section 3.2: Local Staff Hardship and Emergency Health Fund. Total allocation for current fiscal quarter: sixty-two thousand five hundred dollars. Disbursed funds: sixty-two thousand five hundred dollars."
"Read the line item for Form 408-B," I said.
Evelyn stopped. Her eyes froze on the printed page.
"Form 408-B," I said into the silence of the room. "Submitted July 14th by Annie Carter. Request for replacement lower-limb prosthetic assembly. Amount: nine thousand eight hundred dollars."
Evelyn swallowed hard. A tiny bead of sweat appeared near her hairline beneath her perfectly styled gray hair. "That request... as noted in the appendix, Alex... that request was reviewed and declined due to departmental budget caps."
"Show me the signed rejection, Evelyn."
"It's... it's archived in the digital database," she stammered, her voice losing its crisp authority. "Signed by Samuel Wilson under his standard operational clearance—"
"Samuel Wilson didn't sign that document, Evelyn," I interrupted softly.
The room went dead silent.
"You signed it," I said, leaning forward across the table. "You used a forged Level 4 administrative override key on an off-site VPN connection registered to your son's apartment in SouthPark. You denied a eighteen-year-old girl a replacement leg, forged my estate manager's name, and transferred nine thousand eight hundred dollars into a Delaware dummy account called Apex Care Logistics LLC."
Evelyn's face transformed in an instant. The calm, arrogant financial controller vanished, replaced by a pale, terrified mask.
"Alex..." she whispered, her hands shaking as she pulled her folder back. "Alex, that's... that's a complete misunderstanding. Apex Care is an approved third-party vendor—"
"Apex Care Logistics is a fraudulent shell company operated by your son, Marcus," Detective Vance spoke up, pulling a leather badge wallet from his jacket and laying it flat on the table. "I am Detective Vance with the State Bureau of Investigation, Mrs. Vance. We have executed search warrants on Apex Care's bank accounts, your son's brokerage accounts, and your personal offshore holdings in the Cayman Islands."
Evelyn gasped, pulling her hands away from the table as if it were on fire. "What?"
At that exact moment, the phone inside Evelyn's handbag began to vibrate violently.
Bzzzz. Bzzzz. Bzzzz.
May you like
She stared at her handbag in horror.
"Answer it, Evelyn," I said coldly. "It's your son. He's probably calling to ask why his Porsche GT3 was just loaded onto an SBI tow truck in SouthPark."
