Chapter 3
Now, sitting beside a Texas highway four years later, I understood how cowardly that explanation had been.
I took out my phone.
For a long time, I stared at Lydia’s name.
Then I called.
She answered on the fourth ring.
“Damian?”
“Are you busy?”
“You haven’t asked me that before calling since approximately 2009, so something is wrong.”
That was Lydia.
Three years younger than me, sharper than most of the attorneys who worked for our company, and almost impossible to impress.
“I saw Mabel Sterling.”
Silence.
Not surprise.
Silence.
I straightened.
“You knew she was still here.”
“I knew.”
“Did you know what happened to her?”
Another pause.
“I knew what I was told.”
“That she stole from us.”
“Yes.”
“Did you believe it?”
“I didn’t know what to believe.”
That answer bothered me more than a simple yes would have.
“What do you mean?”
“Damian, where are you?”
“Outside Bellweather.”
“Are you driving?”
“Not now.”
“Good.”
I heard a door close on her end.
When she spoke again, her voice was lower.
“Four years ago, when the money disappeared, Aunt Ruth handled most of the internal investigation.”
Ruth Vance was my father’s youngest sister.
For thirty-seven years, she had worked inside the Vance family businesses in one capacity or another. She had started as a secretary, moved into administration, then bookkeeping, then financial oversight. By the time I took control of the larger Houston operation, Ruth had become the person everyone trusted with the old family companies still based near Bellweather.
“What did the auditors say?” I asked.
“Which auditors?”
I frowned.
“The independent auditors.”
“There weren’t any.”
I sat up straighter.
“What?”
“The review was internal.”
“That can’t be right.”
“It is.”
“Nearly two hundred thousand dollars disappeared.”
“One hundred eighty-seven thousand four hundred.”
The exact number came too quickly.
“You remember it.”
“I remember because I asked the same question you’re asking now. Why wasn’t an outside firm brought in?”
“And?”
“Aunt Ruth said the evidence was straightforward. The transfers were made using Mabel’s credentials. Mabel had access. Mabel couldn’t satisfactorily explain them.”
“Was the money recovered?”
“No.”
“Did anyone prove she received it?”
“No.”
“Was she prosecuted?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Insufficient evidence beyond the access records.”
I closed my eyes.
“So we had enough evidence to destroy her career, but not enough to take to a prosecutor.”
Lydia sighed.
“That’s one way to put it.”
“It’s the only way I can see it.”
“Then you should look closer.”
Something in her voice stopped me.
“What do you know?”
“Not enough. But I remember something from that summer.”
I waited.
“Mabel called the office.”
“When?”
“A few weeks after Raymond’s funeral.”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“Who did she ask for?”
“You.”
I could hear the blood beating in my ears.
“Did you speak to her?”
“No. Ruth took the call.”
“What did Mabel want?”
“I don’t know. I walked past Ruth’s desk while she was talking. I heard your name. Later I asked whether I should tell you Mabel had called.”
“And what did Ruth say?”
“She said she had handled it.”
The sunset suddenly seemed very far away.
“Handled what?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
“Why didn’t you ask again?”
“Because four years ago I thought it was personal, Damian. And you had made it very clear that Mabel Sterling was not a subject you wanted discussed.”
May you like
That landed exactly where it should have.
I had made that clear.
