“Your father was still chairman.”
“And?”
Jonathan hesitated.
“That was the vendor-invoice case.”
Adrian remembered.
Barely.
He had been running the design and acquisitions division then.
Hannah worked as chief operating officer.
A vendor billing irregularity cost the company several hundred thousand dollars.
His father handled it privately.
Adrian was told an outside consultant had made duplicate charges and the matter was resolved.
He had never cared about the details.
Hannah had.
She cared about every detail.
“Who was the consultant?”
Jonathan looked at the photograph.
“Whitaker Procurement.”
Adrian felt something cold spread across his chest.
“Lauren.”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said—”
“I said the name matches.”
Jonathan pulled out his phone.
“I need access to archives.”
Rose looked at him.
“At eight o’clock?”
“That is when archives are most exciting.”
No one smiled.
Emma reached into the box again.
“There’s more.”
Beneath the photographs were envelopes.
A flash drive.
An old company badge.
Adrian picked it up.
LENA E. WHITAKER
VENDOR COMPLIANCE CONSULTANT
The photo showed Lauren.
Younger.
Same eyes.
Same face.
Different hair.
Adrian sat down.
For almost three years, Lauren had built a relationship with him.
She had told him they first met at the Hamilton Children’s Foundation gala.
He believed her.
Technically, perhaps they had.
But she had known exactly who he was before that night.
She had worked for his company.
With Hannah.
“Why wouldn’t I remember her?”
Jonathan answered.
“You had twelve hundred employees and contractors by then.”
“Still.”
“She was probably in procurement.”
Adrian looked at the badge.
“Hannah knew her.”
“Yes.”
Emma touched an envelope.
“Mommy wrote.”
Adrian looked at her.
“You can read this?”
“Some.”
He opened it.
Hannah’s handwriting.
The date was seven years earlier.
Adrian,
If I give you this myself, you can make fun of me for being dramatic.
If I don’t, then please take everything in this box seriously before you decide it is old history.
Adrian stopped.
Jonathan closed his eyes.
Rose sat on another chair.
Emma leaned against Adrian.
He continued.
Hannah had discovered a procurement scheme involving Whitaker Procurement and three subcontractors.
Invoices were duplicated across projects.
Consulting retainers billed for work never performed.
Equipment purchases passed through companies that existed mostly on paper.
The total exposure, she estimated, could exceed $1.4 million.
One employee had cooperated.
Then withdrew.
The board wanted the problem settled quietly.
Bennett Ridge was preparing for a major acquisition.
Public fraud allegations could collapse financing.