Chapter 10 - The Connection
I read Brenda's name so many times that Naomi finally took the page away and told me to eat something.
Aunt Lydia had recorded that Philip Voss's payments were guaranteed by a woman named Brenda Hartley.
The date was nearly twenty years before I married Gavin.
I had always assumed Brenda and Gavin first saw my house when I invited them to Thanksgiving.
What if Brenda had been inside long before I knew either of them?
Mara cautioned me against leaping to conclusions, but she agreed the connection was important.
Ruth remembered Brenda as a bookkeeper who had occasionally handled renovation invoices for Philip Voss.
My aunt had complained that Philip's company kept sending demands through an intermediary who refused to identify herself.
Brenda's surname in those records was Hartley.
I had known her only as Brenda Morgan since her second marriage.
The thought of their family history reaching into my aunt's home unsettled me more than the property dispute.
I reviewed pictures from our wedding.
Brenda was standing beneath a tree, smiling at Aunt Lydia's closest friends.
She had told me she didn't know anyone at the ceremony.
Later that day Daniel called.
He had found a private transfer from Gavin's company to Philip Voss labeled settlement advance.
It was large enough to jeopardize the business's payroll.
Gavin had been paying for a promise he could not deliver.
I asked Daniel whether employees were at risk.
“Potentially,” he said.
“That's why I need to look at the real books, not the summaries Gavin sends.”
For the first time I wondered how many other people would suffer because Gavin wanted to win an argument with me.
The phone rang while we were still speaking.
It was a company project manager named Tessa Lee.
She spoke fast, almost whispering.
“Claire, Gavin told us you emptied the operating account.”
“I didn't.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because I saw who moved the money.”
Before she could explain, a male voice called her name from across the room.
May you like
The line went dead.
