Chapter 7 - The Rehearsal Bench
Clara had loved rehearsal rooms.
Not performances.
Rehearsals.
Cesare remembered her telling him that theaters revealed themselves before audiences arrived—when scenery was unfinished, actors forgot lines, and everyone had to solve problems without applause.
Her favorite place in the mansion was not her workroom.
It was the old rehearsal bench near the costume trunks.
The same bench standing only a few yards from where Elsie had cried against Cesare’s chest.
The bench had belonged to the company since its first touring season.
Clara repaired its torn cushion herself years earlier.
Cesare had it moved into the center of the room.
A maintenance employee removed the underside fabric.
Nothing.
They checked the legs.
Nothing.
Then Rosa noticed one section of upholstery had been hand-stitched with pale thread rather than machine-sewn.
Inside the seam was a flat plastic sleeve.
It contained photocopies.
Not originals.
Clara had apparently known better than to remove originals from company records.
The copies documented eleven transfers.
Several matched the fake vendor payments Margaret had identified.
Each contained internal routing information.
One contained an instruction that appeared to redirect a payment after normal business hours.
The recipient account was partially visible.
More important was a handwritten notation in Clara’s pen.
She had tracked which office requested each change.
Most led back to Julian’s executive suite.
But two did not.
They originated from temporary access credentials issued to Vanessa during the refinancing review.
That mattered.
Still, it was not enough to prove Vanessa ordered the transfers.
Access credentials could be shared.
Computers could be used by someone else.
Then Margaret compared one photocopy against the fragment inside Elsie’s torn flower.
The torn flower contained the missing lower corner.
A transaction sequence number.
That sequence number corresponded to the largest transfer in Clara’s packet.
$620,000.
The destination account belonged to Cole Scenic Logistics.
The payment had been authorized electronically at 11:47 p.m. on a Sunday.
Julian had been in Chicago that night.
Vanessa had been at the Romano mansion.
Security records confirmed it.
Cesare felt the case tighten.
But before he could celebrate, Vanessa made her move.
Through an attorney, she delivered copies of emails apparently sent from Clara’s account during the same period.
In them, Clara appeared to instruct accounting staff to route money through Cole Scenic Logistics herself.
If authentic, the emails changed everything.
They suggested Clara had participated in the transfers.
Perhaps even created the scheme.
Vanessa was no longer merely defending herself.
May you like
She was accusing a dead woman who could not answer.
And Julian—still grieving his wife—looked devastated enough to believe it.
