“You requested the desk be cleared before eight.”
Rebecca slowly turned toward her son-in-law.
“Why?”
Grant’s expression changed.
Not much.
But enough.
I saw it.
So did Thomas.
I reached into my box.
Under my photographs and mug was a blue folder.
Grant’s eyes went directly to it.
That was when I knew I had been right.
For three months, I had been reviewing his new vendors.
Not because I distrusted modernization.
Holloway needed modernization.
Our software was outdated.
Our freight network was inefficient.
Some of our oldest supplier contracts absolutely needed to be renegotiated.
But Grant’s replacements bothered me.
A logistics firm charging eighteen percent above market rate.
A “technology integration company” incorporated only nine months earlier.
A consulting vendor with no visible headquarters.
And three different companies whose invoices were sent from the same commercial mailbox in Delaware.
I had asked Grant about them twice.
Both times, he told me to focus on “legacy finance responsibilities.”
So I did what finance people do.
I followed the money.
I placed the blue folder on the table.
Grant stopped moving.
Rebecca noticed.
“What is that?”
I opened it.
“Three of Grant’s preferred suppliers share directors with a private investment company called Meridian North Holdings.”
Grant interrupted.
“This is unbelievable.”
I ignored him.
“Meridian North has two managing partners.”
I slid a corporate registration across the table.
“One is Grant’s former business partner.”
Another page.
“The other is his brother.”
Rebecca’s mouth opened slightly.
Grant stepped forward.
“You’re twisting this.”
“Then untwist it.”
“I disclosed outside relationships.”
Thomas looked through his notes.
“No, you disclosed a dormant consulting company and one passive real-estate investment.”
Grant looked at Rebecca.
“This is being blown out of proportion.”
I reached deeper into the folder.
“There’s more.”
For the first time, he looked afraid.
Two weeks earlier, our internal email archive had flagged an export request from Grant’s office.
His assistant had been ordered to collect purchasing records connected to the vendors I was reviewing.
That might have meant nothing.
Then I found the email.
I slid it across the table.
Malcolm read first.
His eyebrows rose.
Then he passed it to Rebecca.
Her hands trembled slightly.
Grant said, “Private emails are being taken out of context.”
Rebecca kept reading.
I knew the sentence that had stopped her.
It was the same sentence that had stopped me.
Move Hart out before the vendor migration. She asks too many questions and will connect Meridian.
Rebecca lowered the page.
“Grant.”
He raised both hands.
“That could mean anything.”
“It means exactly what it says,” I replied.
He stared at me.
“You were investigating me?”
“No.”
I closed the folder.
“I was doing my job.”
By noon, Grant’s access to financial systems had been suspended.
By 12:30, the board postponed every restructuring decision he had made that quarter.
By one, outside forensic accountants had been hired.
Grant disappeared into Rebecca’s office.
