Chapter 2 - THE COMPANY I NEVER OWNED
The second secret was worse than the first.
By noon, Naomi had pulled every public filing connected to C&E Residential Solutions.
The company had my home address.
My date of birth.
A scanned signature that looked enough like mine to fool someone who had never watched me sign my name.
And according to the operating agreement, I was not merely an owner.
I was listed as Chief Financial Officer.
I had never attended a meeting.
Never opened an account.
Never received a dollar.
Yet C&E had reported more than $1.8 million in revenue during its first ten months.
I stared at the number.
“Where did the money come from?”
Naomi shared her screen.
“Mostly commercial renovation contracts.”
My chest tightened.
Eric owned Bennett Contracting.
His company had struggled for years.
He constantly told me cash flow was bad because clients paid slowly.
C&E, however, appeared to be thriving.
Then I saw the relationship.
Bennett Contracting was one of C&E’s biggest subcontractors.
My fake company was feeding work to my husband’s real company.
“Why create this?” I asked.
Naomi gave me the answer I already feared.
“To qualify for opportunities his company couldn’t get.”
C&E had marketed itself as a majority woman-owned business.
My name had opened doors Eric’s name couldn’t.
Then we found a certification affidavit.
My signature appeared on page six.
I zoomed in.
It was wrong.
Close.
But the loop in the C was too narrow.
Someone had copied my signature instead of writing it naturally.
I felt sick.
My phone rang.
Diane.
I let it go to voicemail.
Seconds later, the transcript appeared.
“You are being unbelievably selfish. Mark has bills. Eric has employees. Families help one another. Stop throwing a tantrum and turn the cards back on.”
No mention of the company.
That interested me.
Either she didn’t know I had discovered it…
Or she knew and was waiting.
At 2:40, my employer’s security director called.
“Claire, we examined the remote security logs from your laptop.”
“How? Mark destroyed it.”
“The device continued communicating with our security server for eleven minutes after the screen failed.”
I sat straighter.
“What happened during those eleven minutes?”
“Someone attempted to connect an external storage device.”
My hand went cold.
“Could they copy anything?”
“No. The drive is encrypted.”
Relief came quickly.
Then disappeared.
“Why would they connect external storage?”
“That’s what concerns us.”
He paused.
“There were also three failed attempts to access your corporate certificate store.”
I knew exactly what that meant.
My work credentials could electronically authenticate certain documents inside our secure systems.
Someone hadn’t just wanted to punish me.
Someone had wanted access.
Then security sent me the device identifier from the external drive.
I recognized it.
I had seen the same black portable drive sitting beside Mark’s gaming computer for almost two years.
May you like
The laptop had not been destroyed in a moment of anger.
The confrontation at midnight had been cover for something planned.
