Chapter 6 - THE SIGNATURE THAT DIDN'T BELONG TO MY FATHER
The forensic accountant's name was Rebecca Shaw.
She was forty-seven, direct, and entirely unimpressed by powerful men.
I liked her immediately.
She met Margaret and me in a conference room at Vale Harbor headquarters.
Julian joined us.
Rebecca placed a series of documents on the table.
“We've identified a pattern.”
I leaned forward.
She pointed to the first document.
“This is an authorization bearing Harrison Vale's signature.”
I recognized it.
The presidential residence.
Rebecca continued.
“We compared it with authenticated signatures from the same period.”
She displayed several samples.
“The questioned signature appears to have been reproduced from an earlier document.”
My stomach tightened.
“Forged?”
“That's a possibility. The evidence supports further examination.”
She turned another page.
“We also found that the authorization was uploaded from a device assigned to Charles Whitcomb's executive office.”
Julian exhaled.
I looked at Rebecca.
“Does that prove Whitcomb did it?”
“No. It establishes where the document entered the system. We still need to determine who created it and who knew.”
I appreciated her precision.
After days of lies, careful truth felt almost luxurious.
Rebecca showed us another set of records.
MorganWell had received consulting payments from a Vale Harbor subsidiary.
The services described were vague.
Several invoices used identical language.
Some payments had been approved outside normal procurement procedures.
“Who benefited?” I asked.
Rebecca looked at Margaret.
“We're tracing that now.”
Then she opened a final spreadsheet.
“These payments are particularly concerning.”
I studied the figures.
They were smaller than the others.
But there were many of them.
Monthly transfers.
To a company called Bain Strategic Communications.
I looked up.
“Celeste.”
Rebecca nodded.
“The company is registered under her name.”
I stared at the numbers.
Adrian had been using Vale Harbor money to pay his mistress's consulting firm.
Money he had no authority to access.
My father had been dead only a few months.
And the people who were supposed to honor his work had begun treating his company like an open wallet.
That evening, I sat alone in his old office.
The room smelled faintly of leather and cedar.
His reading glasses still rested in a drawer.
I opened his desk and found a photograph.
Me at seventeen.
Standing behind the hotel's front desk in an oversized blazer.
My father beside me, smiling proudly.
On the back, he'd written:
Future boss.
I laughed.
Then cried.
Then wiped my face.
May you like
Because grief could wait a little longer.
The company couldn't.
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