Chapter 2 - THE TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLAR LIE
By noon, Damian had hired the one person his father could not fire.
Rebecca Sloan had spent fifteen years as a forensic accountant for federal financial-crimes investigations before opening a private firm in Dallas. She charged more per hour than Mabel used to earn in a week.
Damian told her to bill him whatever she wanted.
“I need you to reconstruct a theft from four years ago.”
“How much?”
“One hundred ninety-eight thousand six hundred and forty dollars.”
Rebecca looked up.
“That exact?”
“That exact.”
“Good.”
“Why good?”
“People who steal casually remember round numbers. People who engineer fraud remember exact numbers.”
That sentence stayed with him.
Arthur had always referred to Mabel’s theft as “about two hundred thousand.”
The police reports used the exact figure.
Damian gave Rebecca full access to every Vance Logistics record he could legally obtain as a minority shareholder.
His father called thirteen minutes later.
“You accessed archived finance servers.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
Arthur was silent.
Then:
“You are making an emotional decision over a woman you haven’t seen in twenty-six years.”
“No.”
Damian looked through the hotel window toward the dry Texas horizon.
“I’m making a financial decision over missing money.”
“You are not CEO.”
“Twenty-seven percent of Vance Logistics belongs to me.”
“Non-controlling.”
“Enough to request an independent audit.”
Arthur’s voice changed.
“You wouldn’t.”
Damian smiled.
There it was.
Fear.
“Interesting response.”
“Damian.”
“I want the original wire authorizations, server logs, insurance claim, disciplinary record, and every internal email mentioning Mabel Sterling.”
“Those records are confidential.”
“So is fraud.”
Arthur hung up.
That afternoon, Mabel refused Damian’s offer to move her and Lily into a hotel.
“I am not becoming dependent on you because you feel guilty.”
“This isn’t guilt.”
“What is it?”
He did not answer quickly enough.
Mabel nodded.
“Exactly.”
She went back to repairing a torn curtain.
Damian watched her for several seconds.
“What would you have done if I had answered your call?”
Mabel’s hands stopped.
“Four years ago?”
“Yes.”
She stared at the needle between her fingers.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not true.”
“No.”
She looked at him.
“It’s the only true answer I have.”
Twenty-six years earlier, he had promised to come back.
He never did.
Four years earlier, fate had thrown them into the same bar.
He had left again.
Damian was beginning to understand that money could fix almost anything except the exact moment another person stopped trusting you.
Lily appeared from the bedroom carrying a stuffed rabbit missing one ear.
She climbed beside Mabel.
Damian watched them.
Then said quietly:
“I want a DNA test.”
Mabel’s expression hardened.
“For you?”
“For Lily.”
“No.”
“Mabel.”
“She is not a business transaction you get to verify before deciding how much she matters.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“It’s what you said.”
Damian absorbed that.
Then nodded.
“You’re right.”
The argument died before it began.
An hour later, Rebecca called.
Her tone had changed.
“Where are you?”
“At Mabel’s.”
“Can she hear me?”
Damian switched to speaker.
“She can now.”
Mabel frowned.
Rebecca continued.
“I found the missing funds.”
Mabel went completely still.
Damian leaned forward.
“Where?”
“The money left Vance Logistics in four transfers over sixteen days.”
“That was in the original investigation.”
“Yes. But the investigators focused on the user account that initiated the transfers.”
“Mabel’s.”
“Correct.”
Rebecca paused.
“They should have focused on where the money went.”
Mabel whispered:
“They said it was overseas.”
“It was routed overseas.”
“Difference?”
“A big one.”
Rebecca’s keyboard clicked in the background.
“The money moved through a Cayman intermediary, then returned to Texas through a company called Red Rock Agricultural Consulting.”
Damian knew the name.
He stood slowly.
“No.”
Mabel looked at him.
“What?”
Red Rock had supplied cattle-management services to the Vance ranch for decades.
It was one of Arthur’s favorite vendors.
“Who owns it?” Mabel asked.
Damian already knew.
“My uncle.”
Arthur’s younger brother.
Graham Vance.
Rebecca continued.
“Not anymore.”
Damian’s stomach tightened.
“What do you mean?”
“Red Rock changed beneficial ownership eleven days before the first transfer.”
“To who?”
“A trust.”
“Whose?”
Another pause.
Rebecca sounded almost reluctant.
“The Evelyn Vance Family Trust.”
Damian stopped breathing.
His mother’s name.
His mother had been dead for six years.
Mabel whispered:
“Damian…”
Rebecca continued.
“And according to the trust amendment, the person who became sole beneficiary after Evelyn Vance’s death was you.”
Silence.
The missing money had not merely been routed away from Mabel.
May you like
On paper, it had been routed toward Damian.
Someone had framed Mabel using his name.
