Chapter 3 - Harbor Point Was Never Just Accounting
Vanessa said VDL Strategic Advisory had been hers.
That much was true.
Seven years earlier, Caldwell Commercial Properties was still small
enough that I approved consultants personally.
I remembered VDL.
I did not remember Vanessa.
She had worked mostly through our former chief financial officer, Martin
Cole.
Rachel’s packet contained invoices totaling $286,000.
Too much for the work described.
Some payments went to VDL.
Others went through a subcontractor called Northbridge Services.
Vanessa claimed Martin instructed her to bill through Northbridge
because Harbor Point had complicated lender reporting.
“Did you question it?”
“Not enough.”
“Did you keep the money?”
“My firm kept legitimate fees. Northbridge did not belong to me.”
“Then who owned it?”
She looked at the letter.
“Martin.”
I felt sick.
Martin had been one of my earliest mentors.
He helped me secure my first institutional financing.
He died eighteen months after Rachel.
Conveniently, the dead could not answer questions.
But Rachel had anticipated that.
The flash drive contained copies of bank records, emails, and one audio
file.
Vanessa reached toward it.
“Please don’t play that tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because tomorrow was supposed to be our wedding.”
I stared at her.
“Was?”
Her face crumpled.
May you like
For the first time, she understood the wedding was no longer the fixed
point around which everything else would move.
