Chapter 11 - THE SIGNATURE I NEVER WROTE
Eight months after my wedding, I discovered I had stolen $4.8 million.
At least according to the documents.
It was 7:12 on a Tuesday morning.
I was barefoot in our kitchen, wearing Adrian's old Northwestern sweatshirt and holding a piece of toast between my teeth when my phone began vibrating across the counter.
Adrian looked up from the coffee machine.
“Work?”
I checked the screen.
My boss.
“Unfortunately.”
“You should quit.”
“You say that every Tuesday.”
“I dislike Tuesdays.”
“You dislike employment.”
“I've had difficult experiences with management.”
“You were management.”
“Exactly.”
I answered.
“Morning, Rebecca.”
There was no morning greeting.
“Mara, are you home?”
Something in her voice made me remove the toast from my mouth.
“Yes.”
“Is Adrian there?”
I looked at him.
He noticed.
His expression changed immediately.
“Yes.”
“Don't come to the office.”
My stomach tightened.
“Why?”
A pause.
Then:
“Federal investigators arrived twenty minutes ago.”
I stopped breathing.
Adrian set down his mug.
“What happened?”
I raised one finger.
“Rebecca, why are federal investigators in our office?”
“They have a warrant.”
“For what?”
“Northbridge Children's Relief.”
I knew the account.
Our firm had begun auditing Northbridge three months earlier after a board member reported irregularities in grant distributions.
Hospitals.
Housing programs.
Pediatric rehabilitation.
Nothing unusual at first.
Then we'd found payments to consulting companies that seemed to exist only on paper.
I'd recommended freezing further transfers.
“What does that have to do with me?”
Rebecca didn't answer.
“Rebecca.”
“They found authorizations.”
“What authorizations?”
“Transfers.”
My hand went cold.
“How much?”
“Four point eight million.”
“I never authorized—”
“They have your digital signature.”
Silence.
Adrian was already moving toward the office where we kept our home computer.
“Dates?”
I asked.
Rebecca gave me three.
I knew immediately.
The first was my wedding day.
The second was the night Owen graduated.
The third was a Sunday when Adrian and I had been in Wisconsin visiting my mother.
Impossible.
“I wasn't even working on two of those days.”
“I know.”
“Then somebody forged it.”
“They also have your authentication records.”
My stomach dropped.
“What records?”
“Your credentials accessed the Northbridge system.”
“From where?”
Another pause.
“Blackthorn House.”
Everything inside me stopped.
Blackthorn House had been sold years earlier.
The restaurant no longer existed.
The new owners had converted the building into a private events venue.
I looked at Adrian.
He saw the answer on my face.
“What?”
I whispered:
“Blackthorn.”
He became completely still.
Rebecca continued.
“Mara, there's more.”
Of course there was.
“There always is.”
“The transfers weren't sent randomly.”
“To whom?”
“Six organizations.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
Six.
No.
I didn't like six.
Not after my father's songs.
“Names.”
She read them.
I wrote each on the back of an envelope.
The first five meant nothing.
The sixth did.
Whitmore Justice Initiative.
Vanessa's nonprofit.
I stared at the name.
“Rebecca.”
“Yes?”
“Don't tell anyone you've spoken to me.”
“I already told the investigators.”
“That's fine. Don't tell anyone else.”
“Mara—”
“Please.”
Silence.
“Okay.”
I hung up.
Adrian was watching me.
“Tell me.”
I handed him the envelope.
His eyes reached Vanessa's organization.
His face changed.
“No.”
“That's what I said.”
“You think she's involved?”
“I think somebody wants us to think she is.”
“Why?”
I looked at the dates.
My wedding.
Owen's graduation.
A family weekend.
Dates when anyone investigating me could easily prove I wasn't responsible.
Too easily.
“This isn't designed to convict me.”
Adrian frowned.
“Then what?”
“To make me look.”
“At what?”
I stared at Vanessa's name.
“I don't know.”
Then someone knocked on our front door.
Three times.
Adrian moved before I did.
Old instincts.
He checked the camera.
A young woman stood outside.
Twenty, maybe twenty-one.
Dark hair.
Green coat.
Terrified.
She carried a cardboard file box.
“Know her?” Adrian asked.
“No.”
He opened the door only after checking the street.
The woman looked at me.
“Mara Cross?”
“Yes.”
She shoved the box into my hands.
“My mother told me if anything happened to her, I should bring this to you.”
“Who is your mother?”
The girl swallowed.
“Rachel Shaw.”
I knew the name.
Northbridge's internal accountant.
The woman who had first reported irregularities.
I had emailed her seventeen times.
She'd missed our scheduled meeting the previous Friday.
“Where is Rachel?”
The girl's eyes filled.
“They found her car last night.”
My chest tightened.
“Where?”
“In Lake Michigan.”
“Was she inside?”
“No.”
“Then where is she?”
“I don't know.”
The girl looked behind herself.
Then back at me.
“But three days before she disappeared, she told me something.”
“What?”
“She said the people stealing from Northbridge weren't stealing money.”
I stared.
“What were they stealing?”
The girl whispered:
“Children's identities.”
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And just like that, $4.8 million became the least frightening number in my kitchen.
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