Chapter 5 - What His Father Had Tried to Stop

Elena called the following morning, but she didn't ask me to come to Dominic's office. She asked permission to speak to me with Pastor Samuel present at the church. I appreciated the difference. I had no desire to enter a building owned by men whose names could make a room fall silent.

By the time I arrived, Esther had put the original receiving book away. Elena sat at the basement table with a folder of estate records. Dominic stood beside a window overlooking the alley. His coat was folded over a chair, and he seemed more tired than I'd seen him before.

"The original contractor invoices confirm the six payments," Elena said. "Eighty-six thousand four hundred dollars in total. Each invoice claims food was purchased, transported, and accepted here."

I looked at the empty section of shelving behind her. That was enough money to fill it many times over.

"Are we sure the estate paid Northline?" I asked.

"Yes. The estate account statements show the transfers. We still need records from Northline to know what happened after the money reached them."

That distinction mattered. Elena wasn't pretending that a suspicion proved the entire scheme. She could tell us exactly where the evidence stopped.

She opened another folder. "There is also something Dominic found in his father's correspondence."

The page was dated before Mr. Moretti's death. It wasn't a sentimental letter. It was an instruction to place Northline's future payments on hold until delivery receipts could be verified independently. His father had apparently noticed that the quantities on the invoices didn't match the figures sent to the charitable trust.

Dominic spoke quietly. "He didn't ignore it."

"Did he discover what happened?" Pastor Samuel asked.

"I don't know," Dominic said. "But he knew something was wrong."

I studied the date again. The payment hold had been issued weeks before the invoices now in front of us. Yet after his father's death, the contractor continued receiving money, including the six payments to the church.

"Who lifted the hold?" I asked.

"Adrian Bell," Elena answered. "The accounting system shows his authorization."

The room went still.

Adrian was the man who had approached me outside the church and warned me about misunderstandings. He was also the man whose job was to explain why funds had moved after the person responsible for them had ordered a stop.

"Could he have had permission from someone else?" I asked.

"That's what we're checking," Elena said. "There are approval documents, but we haven't verified them."

Dominic looked toward the shelves. "I should have reviewed this when my father died."

He said it without asking anyone to excuse him. I respected that more than another promise to fix things with a phone call.

"You weren't the one signing for food that never came," Pastor Samuel said.

"I left the accounts with someone I trusted," Dominic replied. "That was my decision."

I knew something about trusting a system because it was easier than questioning it. Every week I put groceries on shelves, trusting delivery paperwork because no one could physically recount every item before the store opened. But when numbers stopped matching reality, someone had to notice and ask why.

Elena explained that an independent forensic accountant would review the trust records, and that she had advised Dominic to preserve all electronic approvals. She would also contact the appropriate authorities if the evidence continued to indicate fraud. Dominic did not look pleased, but he agreed.

After the meeting, Esther asked if I could help prepare emergency parcels from the supplies Dominic had arranged through the church. They had arrived that morning, separately from Northline's disputed deliveries, with real cartons, real packing slips, and volunteers who could count what had been unloaded.

I helped stack rice beside the beans. I watched Esther sign the receiving book in front of two other volunteers. The simple transparency of it felt unexpectedly important.

Dominic carried cartons down the basement stairs. He moved without speaking much, and nobody treated him differently when Esther asked him to leave the heavy boxes on the floor instead of putting them on the wrong shelf.

When we finished, he waited until Wyatt was occupied with Pastor Samuel's paper sorting before approaching me.

"Adrian shouldn't have spoken to you," he said.

"I told the pastor and Elena. That's where it belongs now."

"I can make him stay away."

The answer came too quickly. I looked at him, and he seemed to understand what he'd implied.

"By asking someone to frighten him?" I said.

"That isn't what I said."

"You didn't have to."

He looked away. I didn't know what he had done to earn the reputation attached to his name. I knew enough not to ask for a demonstration.

"I want the threat documented," I continued. "I want the records checked. I don't want somebody hurt because he made me uncomfortable."

After a moment, Dominic said, "Then we do it through Elena."

I was relieved, but relief was not the same as trust. He had agreed to a boundary once. I needed to see what he did when it cost him something.

At home that evening, Wyatt helped me unpack the groceries I had bought with my small paycheck and a few items from the church shelf. He found a carton of milk and held it up as though it were a prize.

"We made it," he said.

I laughed before I could help myself. It was the first easy laugh I'd managed in days.

"We did, buddy."

He asked again about the LEGO truck Caden was getting. I explained that Christmas surprises didn't always come in big boxes. Wyatt considered that and announced that a small gift could still be a good one if it had interesting pieces. I tucked his words away, hoping I could give him something to build.

Later, Esther called. Elena's accountant had found a second discrepancy. Three other community organizations had received invoices from the same contractor, and at least one had already reported missing deliveries. The church wasn't the only place where food had been paid for but never unloaded.

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I put down the phone and looked at our milk in the refrigerator.

Eighty-six thousand four hundred dollars had been taken from the promise made to our church. The larger question was how many other families were standing before empty shelves while someone claimed their food had already arrived.