Chapter 2 - NO FLIGHTS HOME
The first cancellation alert reached Patricia Reeves at 3:06 p.m.
I knew because I heard her shout my name from the dining room.
Not call.
Not ask.
Shout.
“Simone!”
The kitchen went quiet.
Nadia looked at me.
I wiped my hands and walked through the swinging doors.
Patricia was standing at the head of the table with her phone in one hand and her wineglass in the other.
Her cream cashmere sweater looked almost silver beneath the chandelier.
Everyone else had stopped eating.
Douglas remained seated.
Richard watched me with an expression I could not read.
Patricia held up her phone.
“Why did I just receive an email saying that my sister’s flight to Atlanta has been canceled?”
I stopped beside the doorway.
“Because it was canceled.”
“I can read, Simone.”
“Then we’re off to a strong start.”
One of Douglas’s cousins coughed into his napkin.
Patricia’s eyes narrowed.
“Who canceled it?”
“I did.”
For the first time all afternoon, Douglas stopped smiling.
“What?”
I looked at him.
“The flights were booked through my company travel account.”
Patricia stared at me as if I had confessed to setting fire to the house.
“You canceled everyone’s flights?”
“Everyone whose ticket Whitfield & Table paid for.”
“That was a convenience.”
“It was an unpaid convenience.”
“I told you I would reimburse you.”
“You did.”
“Then what is this?”
“This is me deciding I don’t want eighteen thousand six hundred forty-two dollars of my company’s cash floating around on behalf of people who think the owner belongs in the kitchen.”
The number changed the room.
Several relatives looked at Patricia.
A cousin from Denver quietly checked his own phone.
An aunt near the fireplace whispered something to her husband.
Patricia lowered her voice.
“You are humiliating this family over a joke.”
I looked at Douglas.
He finally stood.
“Simone, put the flights back.”
“No.”
His eyes flicked toward the others.
He hated being denied in public.
I had forgotten that because I almost never did it.
“Don’t make this bigger than it is.”
“You told nineteen people your wife was a servant.”
“I was teasing you.”
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The joke after the cruelty.”
His jaw tightened.
“Can we talk privately?”
“We could have done that before you decided my place was in the kitchen.”
Patricia slapped her palm against the table.
“This is Christmas.”
“I noticed.”
“You cannot strand people here because your feelings are hurt.”
“I did not strand anyone.”
I glanced at the windows.
Snow had begun falling again beyond the glass.
“I canceled tickets my company paid for.”
One of the uncles spoke up.
“Can’t we just rebook?”
Another cousin was already tapping his phone.
He frowned.
“Not tomorrow.”
“What do you mean?” Patricia asked.
“Everything out of LaGuardia is either sold out or two thousand dollars.”
Someone at the far end of the table muttered a curse.
Another person said Newark was no better.
The room filled with overlapping voices.
Patricia looked at me like I had personally invented holiday travel.
“You will fix this.”
“No.”
Douglas stepped closer.
“Simone.”
There was a warning in my name.
I had heard that tone before.
At parties.
In the car.
In our bedroom after I disagreed with his mother.
It meant do not embarrass me further.
Usually I stopped.
This time I didn’t.
“Were you planning to tell me about Harbor Gate Holdings?” I asked.
His face changed so quickly that only someone watching for it would have seen.
Richard saw.
So did I.
Patricia blinked.
“What is Harbor Gate?”
Douglas recovered fast.
“A private investment vehicle.”
I almost admired the speed of the lie.
“Interesting.”
“It’s business.”
“Whose business?”
“Mine.”
“You wired four hundred forty-five thousand dollars from our savings account to it.”
The room went dead.
Even the children stopped talking.
Douglas stared at me.
“You went through my banking?”
“Our banking.”
“That money is invested.”
“In what?”
“This is not the place.”
“Neither was the kitchen.”
Richard put down his knife.
“Douglas.”
My husband did not look at him.
“Dad, stay out of it.”
Richard’s expression hardened.
“That has never worked as an instruction.”
Patricia looked between them.
“Four hundred forty-five thousand?”
Douglas exhaled.
“It is temporary.”
I watched his mother closely.
She looked surprised.
But not surprised enough.
That was the second detail I filed away.
Richard leaned back.
“What is Harbor Gate?”
“I just told you.”
“You told Simone it was a private investment vehicle.”
“It is.”
“Who owns it?”
Douglas hesitated.
Half a second.
Maybe less.
“Partners.”
“Names.”
“Dad.”
“Names.”
Douglas looked at me.
And suddenly I understood something important.
He was not afraid I knew about another woman.
He was afraid his father had heard the company name.
That frightened me more than the affair.
Richard’s voice became quieter.
“Does Harbor Gate have any relationship with Reeves North Atlantic?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
I took out my phone.
Douglas’s eyes followed it.
I opened the screenshot of the payment line.
“Then maybe someone should explain why Reeves North Atlantic paid one hundred eighty-six thousand dollars to an invoice using my company name that my company never issued.”
I handed the phone to Richard.
He did not touch the screen at first.
He only looked.
Then he took the phone.
His face lost color.
“Where did you get this?”
“Our joint account history.”
“That does not make sense.”
“I agree.”
He enlarged the image.
Douglas moved toward him.
“Dad, give me that.”
Richard looked up.
“Sit down.”
Douglas stopped.
It was the first time I had seen anyone stop him with two words in years.
Patricia’s voice became thin.
“Richard, what is it?”
He did not answer her.
He looked at me.
“Your invoices are in the thirty-eight hundreds.”
I felt a chill despite the heat from the fireplace.
“How do you know that?”
“Because your company catered the Brennan Energy dinner, the Hartford pension conference, and the Seabrook reception.”
He tapped the number on the screen.
“Your invoices crossed my desk.”
Douglas’s head turned sharply.
Richard continued.
“4418 is not yours.”
“No.”
“What bank received the payment?”
“I only have the reference line.”
“Who has access to your billing templates?”
“Me, Nadia, my bookkeeper, and our operations portal.”
“Douglas?”
“No.”
My husband laughed once.
“This is insane.”
Nobody joined him.
He pointed at the phone in Richard’s hand.
“She sees one line she doesn’t understand and suddenly we’re conducting an audit over turkey?”
I looked at him.
“You knew the number before I said it.”
His mouth closed.
I had him.
Not legally.
Not yet.
But in the room.
When I had mentioned Harbor Gate, he called it an investment vehicle without asking what I meant.
When I said the Reeves payment, he moved toward Richard before seeing the screenshot.
Richard noticed too.
“What is going on?” Patricia asked.
Douglas turned on me.
“Did you open my messages?”
There it was.
Marissa.
I kept my expression blank.
“What messages?”
His eyes searched mine.
For the first time, I watched him wonder how much I knew.
It was a strange reversal.
For months, maybe longer, he had known things about my marriage that I did not.
Now he was the one calculating danger.
Patricia stepped between us.
“This is enough.”
She lowered her voice as if speaking to a difficult employee.
“Simone, you are emotional.”
Nadia appeared in the doorway behind me.
I did not need to turn around to know she was there.
The room changed when she entered.
Patricia noticed.
“This is a family matter.”
Nadia’s voice was calm.
“She is my employer, and your guests are consuming a contracted service.”
Patricia stared at her.
“Excuse me?”
Nadia held up a leather folder.
“Your service agreement ends at four o’clock.”
I almost smiled.
I had forgotten that Nadia always carried printed contracts.
Patricia looked at me.
“You charged us for this dinner?”
“No.”
Nadia answered before I could.
“Mrs. Reeves requested a formal invoice, then asked us to classify the event as a promotional family engagement.”
Patricia went still.
Nadia continued.
“Ms. Whitfield approved the discount.”
I stared at Patricia.
That was new information to me.
“I never approved that.”
Nadia opened the folder.
Her eyes moved to a page.
“That is what I was afraid of.”
She held the document out to me.
At the bottom of the page was my name.
SIMONE WHITFIELD REEVES.
Under it was an electronic signature.
It looked like mine.
It was not mine.
I read the authorization language twice.
The agreement did more than discount Christmas dinner.
It granted Reeves North Atlantic Logistics permission to use Whitfield & Table’s vendor profile for consolidated family and corporate event billing through December 31.
My stomach tightened.
“I have never seen this document.”
Richard stood so quickly his chair scraped against the hardwood floor.
Douglas swore under his breath.
That was when I knew the fake invoice was not an isolated trick.
Someone had created paperwork designed to make forged Whitfield & Table invoices look legitimate.
May you like
And the person standing closest to the lie was my husband.
