“I don’t know.”
I thought of the email.
“Ask Dad.”
When I ended the call, Mara was watching me.
“Your mother may be a witness,” she said.
“She’s also my mother.”
“Those things can both be true.”
The next morning, I met the company’s senior accountant, Nora Finch, in a quiet café three blocks from the bank.
Nora was a narrow-faced woman with silver hair and a habit of tapping her thumb against her coffee cup.
“I thought I was going to lose my job,” she said.
“You may still have one.”
“That would be a first.”
She opened a folder.
“Your father told us the reserve withdrawals were approved by Arthur. When I questioned the dates, he said your grandfather had arranged them before his death.”
“Did you believe him?”
“I wanted to.”
Nora pushed several pages toward me.
The invoices were for marketing services that had never been provided. The vendors were shell companies registered to addresses connected to Ethan’s uncle.
“Why didn’t you report it?”
“Because I did report it. Three times.”
“To whom?”
“Your father. Then his lawyer. Then the bank.”
I looked at her.
“Reeves knew?”
“He suspected. He said the bank needed proof.”
Nora’s tapping stopped.
“I copied everything before your father fired me last month.”
“You were fired?”
“He said I was disloyal.”
I felt something harden inside me.
