Chapter 4 - GREGORY’S PERFECT STORY
The forensic audit started with twelve-year-old numbers.
It ended with current money.
$4.1 million missing before the ambush.
Vendor:
North Harbor Industrial Supply.
Owner on paper:
Dead man.
Bank beneficiary hidden behind a trust.
Current trustee?
Gregory Vance.
Victor stared at the report.
Marcus sat across from him.
Neither spoke.
Then auditors found another entity.
Another.
Another.
Gregory had not stopped after Elena and Leo.
He had improved.
Over twelve years:
$39.7 million.
Small pieces.
Maintenance.
Security upgrades.
Fuel contracts.
Warehouse management.
Emergency procurement.
Every crisis created another invoice.
Every security failure justified more authority.
Victor remembered Gregory saying:
You need someone who sees everything.
He had become that person.
Because Victor let him.
Then there were the camera outages.
Back gate failed six times in four months.
Each outage corresponded with a vehicle entering or leaving without standard logging.
Cargo moved.
Documents moved.
Cash sometimes moved.
Gregory used Harrow Point itself as a blind spot.
Hannah had noticed.
Not as evidence.
As annoyance.
“The back gate light keeps waking Poppy,” she told Marcus two weeks earlier.
Marcus had logged the complaint.
Gregory saw it.
Now he knew Hannah had started generating records around the gate.
She became convenient for two reasons.
Scapegoat.
Potential witness.
Then Marcus found the staff investigation file Gregory had built.
HANNAH BELL
Widow.
Hospital debt: $63,400.
No criminal record.
One dependent child.
Low savings.
No wealthy family.
Notes:
Financial pressure substantial.
Access to upper study through cleaning duties.
Credibility vulnerable.
Hannah read that last line with her attorney, Rachel Kim.
Her face changed.
“Credibility vulnerable.”
Rachel said:
“Meaning he thought being poor made you easier to accuse.”
Hannah laughed once.
“That’s nicer than what he meant.”
Victor stood near the far window.
He had asked permission to attend.
Hannah had reluctantly agreed.
She turned toward him.
“Did you see this before I was taken?”
“Parts.”
“Which parts?”
“Debt.”
“Widow.”
“Yes.”
“Access.”
“Yes.”
“Credibility?”
“No.”
She studied him.
“Would it have mattered?”
Victor answered truthfully.
“I don't know.”
Not good.
But true.
Hannah nodded.
Then:
“Poppy saved me.”
Victor’s chest tightened.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“She told you about the coin.”
“Yes.”
“If she hadn't?”
He said nothing.
Hannah answered for him.
“You might have spent the night looking for a thief instead of a kidnapping victim.”
Silence.
Victor eventually said:
“Yes.”
That was the moment everything changed between them.
Not romance.
Not forgiveness.
Honesty.
Hannah looked down at her scarred wrist.
“Then fix the thing that made Gregory’s story so easy to believe.”
Victor frowned.
“What thing?”
“Your house.”
She looked toward Harrow Point beyond the window.
“A place where a manager can investigate a maid’s debt, cut cameras, access your safe and tell you what happened before you ask the maid herself.”
Victor did not like hearing it.
Good.
May you like
He needed to.
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