Chapter 6 - The Papers Were Not About Money
The forensic review confirmed fraud inside my old company.
Frank had used shell suppliers to divert money.
Hundreds of thousands.
Possibly more.
But the scheme ended soon after Emily disappeared.
I assumed that was what she'd discovered.
I was wrong.
Maisie remembered a green folder.
Her mother kept it inside a locked metal box.
After they moved to Madison three years earlier, Emily began taking the box everywhere.
“Where is it now?”
Maisie shrugged.
“Aunt June had it.”
We identified June Harper.
She had rented an apartment in Madison until two months earlier.
She wasn't missing.
She had moved to Minnesota.
Thomas contacted her.
When I spoke to June, she cried.
“Emily told me this day might come.”
“Where is she?”
“I don't know.”
“You're her friend.”
“I haven't seen her in three days either.”
That matched Maisie's timeline.
June explained that Emily had recently become frightened because Veronica contacted her again.
“Why?”
“She wanted the folder.”
“What was in it?”
June surprised me.
“Not proof against Frank.”
“What then?”
“Proof against Allan.”
Veronica's late husband.
The dentist who altered Emily's identification.
“What did Allan do?”
June exhaled.
“Emily believed Allan didn't just fake the dental record.”
“What else?”
“He helped Frank hide the original fraud.”
The connection became clearer.
Allan wasn't a random dentist helping scared teenagers.
He had been financially connected to Frank.
And Emily had somehow gathered documents showing it.
But then June said something that made my stomach drop.
“Allan wasn't the person Emily feared most.”
“Who was?”
June didn't answer immediately.
“She never told me the name.”
“Why?”
“Because she said the person was still close to you.”
I looked toward the hallway where Veronica was waiting.
My future wife.
My social circle.
My business network.
May you like
Someone had remained close enough to watch me for twenty-two years.
And Emily had known it.
