Chapter 5 - THE COMPANY THAT FIXED NOTHING
Grant called Northpoint a legitimate subcontracting administrator.
Maybe.
So Martin hired an independent forensic firm.
I stayed out of it.
That mattered.
I had spent years being financially vulnerable.
I was not going to become someone who treated suspicion like proof.
The auditors started with invoices.
$87,000 for a roof replacement at Second Door House Four.
The roof had never been replaced.
I knew because I had visited that building with Richard during a winter fundraiser.
Water stains still covered the third-floor ceiling.
Another invoice:
$41,500 security upgrade.
The actual contractor had charged $14,200.
Another:
$118,000 HVAC replacement.
Real cost:
$39,000.
Money was disappearing between the real contractors and Northpoint’s invoices.
Then investigators found Northpoint’s beneficial owner.
Not Grant.
His brother-in-law.
Grant immediately claimed he had disclosed the relationship years earlier.
No record supported that.
Then money flowed from Northpoint into another company.
Holloway Family Ventures.
Now his name appeared.
I sat with Martin while accountants explained millions in transfers.
Some might prove legitimate.
Some did not.
Then one investigator asked me:
“Did Richard ever complain that maintenance costs were rising?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Last winter.”
Richard had been furious after a heating failure at one of the transitional buildings.
Three families temporarily moved to hotels.
He kept saying:
“We pay enough to rebuild the damn place every year. Why is the boiler still broken?”
At the time, I thought he was simply angry.
Now I understood.
That incident started his private investigation.
Then the auditors found approval records.
Several Northpoint payments had Richard’s digital authorization.
Grant’s lawyers seized on it.
“Richard approved the invoices.”
Maybe.
Then I noticed a date.
One approval was timestamped at 10:42 a.m. on February 3.
I remembered February 3.
Richard had been in surgery.
A vascular procedure.
I sat beside him at the hospital from six in the morning until nearly midnight.
He could not have logged into his office system.
Another approval happened three weeks later.
Richard was still recovering at home.
He could have authorized that one.
But not through the desktop computer listed in the metadata.
That computer sat in Grant’s office.
Investigators checked access logs.
Grant’s assistant had logged in using a delegated administrator credential.
Grant claimed Richard gave verbal approval.
Possible.
But there was no documentation.
Then the auditors found an internal message.
Grant to his assistant:
R is asleep. Push Northpoint batch before Martin asks questions.
R.
Richard.
Asleep.
My stomach turned.
That afternoon Grant changed tactics.
He stopped attacking the trust.
Instead, his lawyer approached Martin privately with a proposed settlement.
Grant would withdraw his challenge.
In exchange, Homeward Trust would sell three properties to the development consortium.
Just three.
Not eight.
Martin brought the offer to me because my consent as trust protector was required.
“How much?”
“Fourteen million.”
That could fund a lot of programs.
Then I asked:
“Where would the residents go?”
Martin smiled slightly.
Richard had chosen me correctly.
The development plan included no replacement housing.
I refused.
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Three hours later, a reporter called asking whether I had “married an elderly billionaire in exchange for housing and now controlled his fortune.”
Grant had decided if he could not buy my signature privately, he would make me ashamed of it publicly.
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