Chapter 5 - THE OTHER MERIDIAN
Meridian Strategy Group.
My company.
Meridian Strategic Group.
Their company.
One word different.
Strategic instead of Strategy.
The kind of difference most people would miss on a bank statement.
I didn’t.
Neither did Susan.
The second Meridian had been incorporated eighteen months earlier.
Registered agent:
Patricia Reynolds.
Daniel’s mother.
Manager:
Kyle Reynolds.
Mailing address:
A private mailbox three miles from our house.
I stared at the filing.
“What does this have to do with my company?”
Susan turned her monitor.
Several customers who had previously paid Meridian Strategy Group received updated wire instructions over the previous year.
Most ignored them.
Three did not.
Total diverted payments:
$287,300.
My hands went cold.
“Who sent the instructions?”
“Emails made to resemble yours.”
I leaned closer.
My company email:
Fake email:
One word.
One trap.
“Did Daniel know?”
Susan didn’t answer.
She didn’t need to.
I called our IT director.
Within two hours, we found something worse.
Two of the fraudulent emails had been forwarded from Daniel’s personal laptop.
Not necessarily sent by him.
But accessed there.
That evening, I did not confront him.
I called an attorney.
Then my insurer.
Then the affected clients.
Then the bank’s fraud department.
Only after every record was preserved did I go home.
Daniel was sitting in the dark living room.
“You called my mother.”
“Yes.”
“What did you say?”
I set my bag down.
“That I needed copies of records connected to Meridian Strategic Group.”
He went completely still.
There are moments when a lie dies before anyone speaks.
That was one.
“How do you know about that?”
Not:
What is that?
How do you know?
I sat across from him.
“So you knew.”
He looked toward the window.
“What exactly did Susan find?”
I almost smiled.
Wrong question again.
“You tell me.”
Daniel stood.
“It wasn’t stealing.”
I stared.
He realized what he had admitted.
“Then what was it?”
“Temporary cash flow.”
“From my customers?”
“They were family referrals.”
“No.”
“Some were.”
“Kyle sent fake payment instructions.”
“He didn’t think of it like that.”
“How did he think of it?”
“As commissions.”
“For work he didn’t perform?”
Daniel started pacing.
“Patricia said your company had benefited from the family for years.”
I almost couldn’t believe the sentence.
“So she created a copy of my company?”
“It wasn’t supposed to become permanent.”
“How much did you receive?”
“I didn’t receive anything.”
“Did your mother?”
He looked away.
“Did Kyle?”
No answer.
“Daniel.”
“They used it to pay debts.”
“What debts?”
“Mom’s house.”
Kyle’s businesses.
Megan’s credit cards.
And something Daniel still wasn’t saying.
“What else?”
Nothing.
I stood.
“The bank will figure it out.”
His head snapped toward me.
“You called the bank?”
“Yes.”
“Claire!”
He looked genuinely terrified.
Not guilty.
Terrified.
“You need to stop this.”
“No.”
“You don’t understand what you’re doing.”
“Then explain it.”
He lowered his voice.
“If they freeze that account, Mom could lose her house.”
I stared.
“Why?”
Silence.
Then:
“Because the mortgage is tied to it.”
That didn’t make sense.
Patricia had owned her house for nearly twenty-five years.
At least that was what the family always said.
“Your mother has a mortgage?”
“Technically.”
“How much?”
He swallowed.
“Seven hundred and eighty thousand.”
I laughed once.
Her house was worth maybe nine hundred thousand.
“Why would a sixty-eight-year-old woman borrow almost the entire value of a house she supposedly owned outright?”
Daniel sat down.
Then said:
“Because it wasn’t her house.”
My heartbeat changed.
“What?”
He looked at me.
“The house belongs to a trust.”
“Whose?”
May you like
His answer made me forget about the fake Meridian for several seconds.
“Yours.”
