Chapter 11 - THEY TRIED TO MAKE MY WIFE LOOK GUILTY
The payment went to an account opened using Dakota’s identity.
Not her bank.
Not her signature.
But enough information to make the first glance ugly.
Twenty-five thousand dollars transferred from my discretionary account into an account carrying my wife’s name.
Then moved offshore.
If the Bellarosa scheme had succeeded and the audit later began, someone could argue Dakota had been involved.
Maybe she helped.
Maybe she profited.
Maybe the suspicious wife was actually part of the conspiracy.
Robert Vale had built backup stories.
One for Trinity.
One for me.
One for Dakota.
Everyone disposable.
Luca traced the account opening documents.
A passport copy.
Old address.
Tax ID.
Information someone could have obtained from my home.
My skin went cold.
“Trinity had access to our house once.”
When?
Four months earlier, Dakota had been flying a three-day trip.
I brought Trinity home.
Into our bedroom.
The memory now filled me with disgust.
Trinity had been alone in the house for nearly an hour while I went to buy food.
She could have photographed documents.
She admitted exactly that.
Not Dakota’s passport.
But tax paperwork.
Bank statements.
Anything her father requested.
“I didn’t know they would open an account.”
Again.
The sentence did not erase the choice before it.
Dakota was furious when she learned.
Not hysterical.
Furious.
“This is identity theft.”
“Yes.”
“You brought her into our home?”
I could barely look at her.
“Yes.”
That hurt her more than Florence.
I saw it.
The house had been hers too.
Her kitchen.
Her bed.
Her photographs.
I had treated it like scenery in my secret life.
“Get out.”
We were standing in a private airport office.
I blinked.
“Dakota—”
“Get out of this room.”
I did.
No argument.
Twenty minutes later, Michael Grant emerged.
“She does not want direct contact for the rest of the trip.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
For once, I did.
The financial account became powerful evidence that the Vale scheme included identity fraud beyond corporate espionage.
It also cleared Dakota.
Her employment records showed she had been flying internationally when the account was opened in person through a fraudulent intermediary.
Then something unexpected emerged.
The account-opening camera had captured the intermediary.
A woman in sunglasses.
Not Trinity.
I didn’t recognize her.
Richard did.
She was Amanda Cross.
Former assistant general counsel at Caldwell Meridian.
She had resigned nine months earlier.
One week before Trinity first approached me.
Amanda had access to executive personnel files.
Home addresses.
Spousal information.
Internal expense systems.
Suddenly the entire scheme had an insider.
Vale hadn’t only compromised me from the outside.
Someone inside Caldwell had built the map.
When investigators searched Amanda’s old communications, one name appeared repeatedly.
Robert Vale.
But there was another.
Someone still working at Caldwell Meridian.
Someone on the executive committee.
Richard’s expression changed when he saw it.
“Impossible.”
“Who?”
He turned the laptop toward me.
DAVID SLOAN.
Caldwell Meridian’s chief strategy officer.
My mentor.
The man who had recommended me for senior vice president.
May you like
The man I had trusted more than anyone in the company.
And according to the messages, David had been feeding Vale information for three years.
