Chapter 8 - THE NUMBER HE HID
“Four hundred thousand?”
Mitchell nodded.
I sat down despite myself.
The lobby air-conditioning hummed above us.
A woman walked past carrying grocery bags.
Someone laughed near the elevators.
The ordinary sounds made the number feel even more obscene.
“What did you do?”
“I didn’t steal four hundred thousand.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
He sat across from me.
“I managed the Farraday account.”
I knew the name.
A regional medical equipment distributor.
Mitchell had spent years bragging about landing them.
“They were threatening to leave,” he continued. “Our service failures had cost them business. I approved credits to keep them from terminating.”
“Without authorization.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Originally about seventy-eight thousand.”
“Then where did four hundred come from?”
He rubbed his hands together.
“There were side agreements.”
“With who?”
“A procurement director at Farraday.”
My stomach tightened.
“What kind of side agreements?”
“He promised renewals if I could get additional promotional allowances approved.”
“Could you?”
“No.”
“So you falsified them.”
“I moved expenses around.”
I stared at him.
“Say it like an adult.”
His eyes flashed.
“I altered internal coding.”
“To hide losses.”
“Yes.”
“How did Theresa become involved?”
“When finance found the first discrepancy, Mom offered to help reimburse the company so they wouldn’t report me.”
“Why would they accept money from your mother?”
“Arthur arranged it.”
Arthur Bell.
Again.
“And the rest?”
“They reopened the account during an audit.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
Three weeks.
Exactly when Mitchell became colder.
Exactly when Theresa began treating me like I was in the way.
“They want four hundred thousand?”
“They believe the exposure could be that high.”
“Exposure isn’t the same as you owing it.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you trying to pull two hundred forty thousand from our house?”
“Because Arthur said if I could make the company whole enough to contain the problem internally, I might keep it from becoming something bigger.”
I leaned back.
“So you committed more fraud to hide the first fraud.”
His eyes closed.
When he opened them, he looked exhausted.
“I panicked.”
“You forged my signature.”
“I didn’t make the license.”
“Who did?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit.”
“I swear.”
“Lauren?”
“No.”
“Theresa?”
He looked away.
That was answer enough.
My skin went cold.
“Your mother made the fake ID.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
He stood.
“Danielle, please. She was trying to keep me from losing everything.”
I stood too.
“So she decided I should lose everything instead?”
“No.”
“My credit. My home equity. My identity.”
“I was going to repay it.”
“With what? Your job that might disappear?”
He had no answer.
I stepped closer.
“Why did you need me out of the townhouse?”
He looked toward the lobby doors.
“Lauren said the lender might insist on a new verification if you were present during closing.”
“So the harassment was intentional.”
“No.”
“She threw a pot at my face.”
“That was not planned.”
“But getting me to leave was.”
His silence lasted too long.
I felt something inside me harden.
“You let your mother terrorize me because it solved a paperwork problem.”
“I told her to make you uncomfortable. I didn’t tell her to hurt you.”
He seemed to hear himself only after the words were out.
His face collapsed.
Mine didn’t.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For finally telling the truth when it was too late to take it back.”
I turned toward the elevator.
“Danielle.”
I stopped.
He sounded different.
Scared.
“There’s something you need to understand about the house.”
I looked over my shoulder.
“What?”
He lowered his voice.
“The HELOC wasn’t the first thing they filed.”
My hand went still at my side.
“What did they file?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Arthur handled it.”
“What does Arthur Bell have to do with my house?”
May you like
Mitchell looked at me for a long moment.
Then said, “Last year, before Harbor Row made the first payment, your ownership records were changed.”
