Chapter 2 - The Files My Father Kept

"Documenting them for how long?" I asked.

My father did not answer immediately. I could hear the faint rustle of paper on his side of the call, a familiar sound from the years when I used to sit outside his office waiting for him to finish work.

"The first concerns were raised almost two years ago," he said. "Not a conclusion, Audrey. Concerns. There is a difference."

I looked through the windshield of my Range Rover. Dominic and Natalie had disappeared from the courthouse steps. I had only been divorced for twenty minutes, yet a different kind of loss was beginning to take shape. Crestwood Holdings was my parents' life's work. I had watched my mother review building plans at our kitchen table long before the company's name appeared on the skyline. Somewhere along the way, I had mistaken my husband's confidence for evidence that he deserved their trust.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because the compliance reports were confidential. Because you were his wife. And because a suspicion isn't a license to accuse someone, even if I never liked the way Dominic surrounded himself with relatives."

The answer hurt. It also made sense. My father hadn't told me to protect Dominic. He had left the investigation to people who could actually establish what had happened. I had spent those same years doing the opposite: explaining away everything uncomfortable because I loved my husband.

"Then tell me what you know now."

"Not over the telephone. Come to the office in the morning. Our general counsel will be there, along with the head of compliance. And Audrey? Don't confront him about the handbag."

I glanced toward the empty courthouse entrance. "He already knows I recognized something."

"Recognition isn't proof. We need records."

I drove home with my father's words turning over in my mind. The house was quiet. Five years earlier Dominic and I had argued cheerfully about where the furniture should go. Now there were pale spaces on the walls where his photographs had been, and a single drawer still contained the ties he had failed to collect. I closed it without looking inside.

At eight the following morning, I returned to Crestwood for the first time in months. The lobby still smelled faintly of polished stone and coffee. The receptionist greeted me carefully, as though my divorce had made the building dangerous to mention. She led me upstairs to a conference room with the blinds drawn.

My father was already there. So were Helena Price, the company's general counsel, and Leah Moreno, who directed compliance. Helena had a neat stack of folders in front of her. Leah had a notebook, but no prepared speech. I appreciated that. I had heard enough practiced speeches from Dominic.

"Before we begin," Helena said, "the company is not asking you to investigate your former husband personally. You can help us identify what you observed, but records have to be collected through proper channels. You must not access his accounts, ask staff to send you confidential files, or approach witnesses on our behalf."

"I wasn't planning to," I said. Then I thought of the photographs I'd deleted from my phone and the handbag I had recognized. "I do have information."

I described the expense I had noticed three months earlier: $12,340, entered as an international client gift, with no named recipient or approval attached to the expense entry I had seen. I described Natalie on the courthouse steps, holding a cream-colored bag that appeared to match the purchase. I was careful with the word appeared.

Leah wrote it down. "Do you remember the date?"

"Late July. I can find the exact day from my notes. I asked Dominic about it. He said finance had used the wrong code."

Helena exchanged a glance with Leah. It wasn't an expression of surprise. That frightened me more.

Leah opened a summary sheet. "The expense is among the transactions already flagged for review. What we haven't established is whether the handbag you saw is the same item, who ultimately paid for it, or whether there was any legitimate business authorization. Your observation gives us a potential recipient. It doesn't answer those questions by itself."

I sat back. Part of me had wanted somebody to say Dominic was guilty and let that be the end of it. Instead, they were explaining how much work remained. For the first time, I understood why my father had waited.

Leah showed me a chart of purchasing approvals. Three consulting firms had received unusually rapid approvals after executives associated with Dominic's network recommended them. One of the firms performed substantial legitimate work. Another had invoices supported by descriptions too vague to verify. The third appeared in overlapping invoices on two construction projects.

"Are they all his relatives?" I asked.

"Not all," Leah answered. "Some employees were hired through referrals and are qualified. Some consultants have delivered work. We are not assuming a person is dishonest because of a surname. We are asking who approved each contract, whether the services were delivered, and where the money went."

My father watched me absorb that. "The business cannot survive by treating loyalty as a substitute for evidence. Dominic exploited that weakness. I allowed it to grow."

That admission startled me. He had founded Crestwood, and for years I had regarded him as the one person capable of fixing anything. Now he was admitting he had made room for the problem.

Helena explained that an independent board committee had authorized an outside forensic review the previous week, after new concerns appeared in a project audit. Dominic had not yet been accused formally. Access logs and accounting records were being preserved under routine company procedures; steps affecting his employment would require board action and legal advice. Neither my father nor I could simply declare him removed.

"Then what do you need from me?"

"Your exact recollection," Leah said. "Not your conclusions. The first time you noticed unusual payments. Any conversations you remember. We will separate what you saw from what you inferred."

I opened the notebook I'd brought and began writing. The vendor names I had questioned. A manager who had abruptly left a project after challenging the budget. The meetings Dominic claimed were unimportant. I could remember his irritation with extraordinary clarity, but I could not always remember a date. Leah recorded the uncertainty instead of pretending it wasn't there.

As we finished, Helena put a final document on the table. It was an extract from a renovation budget at Riverton Heights, one of Crestwood's largest residential developments. Two invoices from different vendors described the same inspection work, completed on the same day, in the same building. Both had been approved.

I examined the signatures. One belonged to Dominic's cousin Ryan Vance, recently promoted within procurement. The other belonged to a manager who had since transferred out of the department.

"What happened to that manager?" I asked.

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Leah closed her notebook. "That's one of the questions the outside investigators are trying to answer."

For the first time since the courthouse, I wasn't thinking about the woman on Dominic's arm. I was thinking about everyone who worked for the company, and what their silence might have cost them.