Chapter 88 - The Invoice With Rebecca’s Name
Rebecca denied preparing the consulting invoice. She said the firm had been hired under her name, but she had never received the payment. Her former business partner confirmed that the invoice came from the firm’s billing system, though he could not identify who entered it.
The amount was small compared with the reserve. The timing was not.
Thomas Pike’s note said he had asked for a completed work report. The company had replied that the review was “internal and confidential.” A week later, his consulting stipend stopped.
“Did anyone tell you to stop asking?” Nora asked him.
“Not directly. My supervisor said I had been brought in to check the numbers, not challenge the people who approved them.”
“Who was your supervisor?”
“Adrian.”
Thomas spoke with his attorney present. He did not accuse Adrian of ordering the invoice. He said Adrian had assigned the review and then ended it. That was what he remembered.
Adrian’s attorney called the statement “incomplete and colored by a decades-old employment dispute.” Thomas’s lawyer responded with his old performance reviews, which described him as careful and reliable until the quarter his stipend ended.
The accountant compared the consulting invoice to the ledger. It was paid from the reserve, then entered as an administrative expense. The underlying transfer had gone through the shell company owned by Charles.
The money had traveled in a circle: reserve, shell company, consulting firm, then no documented report.
“Could the work have been done?” I asked.
“It could have been,” the accountant said. “We have no work product yet.”
“Can Rebecca’s former firm search?”
“They are doing that.”
Rebecca agreed to provide access to her former business files through her attorney. She had not volunteered it at first. She now said she wanted the record complete, even if it embarrassed her.
Madison asked whether Rebecca was doing it because she felt guilty.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“I’m tired of not knowing.”
“I am too.”
She sat beside me at the center’s small kitchen table. “When I was a child, I thought Dad kept everything from falling apart. Mom made things feel warm, but Dad made the decisions. I didn’t question the difference.”
“Neither did I for a long time.”
“Did you believe him when he said Beatrice was trying to take advantage?”
“Yes.”
She looked at me. “So did I.”
We let that sit between us. We had both repeated stories that made the family easier to live inside.
The former consulting firm sent a box of paper files. It included billing records, a calendar, and several envelopes marked “Harbor review.” There was no completed report. A calendar entry showed a meeting between Adrian and the firm’s partner. The notes said: Client wants payment treated as closing adjustment. Need authorization from beneficiary before release.
The meeting date was one day before the partial repayment was made.
The accountant read the note twice. “This suggests somebody was discussing the money as a closing adjustment, but we still need to identify the client and what authority they claimed.”
Nora found an attached billing slip. The client code belonged to Harborline Services, Charles’s company.
The box also contained a draft invoice addressed to the family trust. It was never sent. Across the top, in handwriting that could have been Adrian’s, were the words: Hold until Claire confirms.
I had never been asked to confirm anything.
May you like
Nora placed the draft beside the old notice record.
“Someone expected your consent,” she said. “We still don’t know who.”
