Chapter 7 - The Third Set of Books

The former accountant's name was June Park. She agreed to speak to Sarah and me by video call the next morning, with her own attorney present. She was precise, nervous, and unwilling to guess about anything she had not personally seen. After the confidence of my sister and her circle, I found that caution almost reassuring.

June had worked for a small firm hired to review Meridian Harbor Services before the wedding. Its first report listed unexplained transfers from the Carter foundation, followed by payments to several contractors. One of those contractors existed only on paper. Its registered agent had ties to Dominic Rusk, and its bank instructions eventually sent money to an investment company controlled through a holding structure associated with Victoria.

“The original report said we could not verify the business purpose of those payments,” June explained. “We recommended suspending further transfers until the client produced records.”

“What happened?” Sarah asked.

“Our managing partner was told the report was unacceptable. We were sent revised schedules and instructed to issue a clean summary. I refused to sign it.”

June's firm had lost the contract. The clean summary nevertheless appeared later under the name of another reviewer. June had saved her working files and the correspondence instructing her to make changes. Her attorney had already arranged to provide copies to federal investigators.

“Why haven't you come forward before now?” I asked.

“I did raise the issue with my firm's counsel,” she said. “They told me it was a dispute about incomplete records. I had no proof of who controlled the overseas company, and I was afraid of naming people I couldn't prove were involved.”

“You knew about the wedding?”

“The deadline was in the messages. The client wanted the revised summary before Mr. Moretti married Ms. Carter.”

I watched the cursor move across June's shared screen. One email from Dominic mentioned an event date. Another said the new Mrs. Moretti would be authorized to coordinate account reviews after the ceremony. The marriage was not merely a reward Victoria had demanded. It was part of her plan to gain credibility with the people who controlled access to Dante's businesses.

For three years I had imagined Victoria stepping into a life I had wanted because Dante loved her more. Now I understood something uglier. She had wanted the name and influence. The affection between us had been a weakness she could use to get them.

Sarah made sure June's attorney took control of the evidence transfer. Nothing came to us as an anonymous bundle we might later be accused of altering. I appreciated that more than I could say.

After the call, I sat by the window and looked down at people crossing the street under umbrellas. When my father was alive, he used to tell me that numbers rarely lied but people often decided which numbers another person was permitted to see.

He had noticed the missing money. Victoria had noticed that he was ill. Dante had noticed how frightened he was of losing me. Each of them had interpreted the same situation according to what they wanted.

The truth had been scattered among bank records and signatures while I spent nights believing my sister had simply been chosen over me.

Sarah received a message from Dante's lawyer. Moretti's internal review had recovered a list of corporate approvals signed after the wedding. Several had been issued through a delegated authorization granted to Victoria and Dominic jointly. The privileges had now been revoked. The bank reviewing Meridian's pending payment had requested additional verification and placed a temporary hold on the transaction.

A hold was not a recovery. It could be lifted if investigators found no legal basis to continue it. But for that morning, the money had not moved.

I felt my shoulders lower for the first time in days.

Then Victoria called.

I considered letting it ring, but Sarah had asked me to report any direct contact. I answered with the call on speaker while Sarah listened. I told Victoria who was present.

“You've made an unbelievable mess,” my sister said.

“Which part? The altered signature, the missing foundation money, or the private investigator you sent to my hotel?”

“I sent someone to confirm whether Dante had a child. He is my husband.”

“He is also a man with a son. That doesn't give you the right to pursue Leo.”

“Don't pretend this is about a child. You always wanted what I had.”

I almost laughed. “You married the man I had been with for eight years.”

“Because he chose me.”

The words struck the old wound. For a second I was twenty-eight again, standing at a wedding with my hands folded around a program I could not bring myself to read.

Then I heard June's careful voice in my memory, explaining the dates of the revised report.

“He chose to believe you,” I said. “That was his failure. It doesn't make your documents genuine.”

Victoria's breathing grew sharper.

“Dad would never have wanted you humiliating this family.”

“Dad wanted me to know the truth.”

“You were his favorite. You always knew that.”

There it was. Not an explanation for the money, but the resentment that had made using me easier.

“I never asked him to love you less,” I said.

“You didn't have to.”

Sarah ended the call after Victoria refused to discuss the burial authorization. She had heard enough to document the attempt to pressure me, but we both knew a bitter exchange between sisters did not prove financial fraud. The records would have to do that work.

At lunch I told Mia what Victoria had said. She listened while cutting Leo's sandwich into squares. Leo was busy telling his airplane to land safely on a cushion. I lowered my voice when I spoke about Dante, but Leo still looked up.

“Is Dante the man who looks like me?” he asked.

I froze.

Mia stopped moving.

“Yes,” I said after a moment. “He is.”

“Why?”

I felt suddenly unprepared for the simplest question of all.

“Because he is your father,” I said gently. “And I am your mother. Some children look a little like both.”

Leo considered this. “Does he have an airplane?”

“I don't know.”

“Can I show him mine?”

I had spent years trying to keep Dante out of my life. I had not understood that one day a little boy would ask for him without blame, without fear, and without knowing why the question was difficult.

“Maybe,” I said. “When we're ready.”

That afternoon, Dante's attorney forwarded one last discovery from the internal review. A letter from my father, addressed personally to Dante, had been scanned into Dominic's archive. It had never appeared in Dante's correspondence file. The letter was dated more than a year before the wedding, only weeks before my father died.

It asked Dante to tell me about the questionable foundation payments immediately, even if the truth ended our relationship. My father had written that an honest loss was better than a life built on someone's silence.

I read those words while Leo slept.

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Dante had not received the letter when it was sent. Dominic appeared to have diverted it. But after my father died, Dante had eventually been told enough to understand that there was danger. And he had still chosen not to tell me.

I was done asking why the truth had been hidden. We had enough of it now to decide what to do.