Chapter 13 - Forty-Eight Hours
Sophie Vale arrived carrying a laptop and a folder full of notes.
She was twenty-seven and had the exhausted expression of someone who had been asked to choose between parents for years.
She told Maya that she had reviewed charitable disbursements on her father's behalf.
Some recipients were genuine organizations.
Others were business entities using names that sounded charitable.
North Coast Holdings appeared as a destination for funds that were supposed to support a veterans' training initiative.
Sophie had questioned the transfers.
Richard told her she did not understand how modern philanthropy worked.
She had believed him because he was her father.
I understood that kind of belief better than I wanted to.
Maya set an urgent schedule for organizing the records before the next hearing.
The court would revisit the temporary restrictions in forty-eight hours.
Richard's lawyers were arguing that the restrictions unnecessarily harmed legitimate business operations.
If they succeeded, disputed funds could move before our accounting was complete.
We worked through the evening.
Leah matched client service dates to vendor invoices.
Marcus explained transaction pathways.
Sophie identified the entities she recognized, while her lawyer helped distinguish documents she was permitted to produce.
Grant kept a chronology on the wall.
At 11:30 p.m., I realized that the suspicious activity had accelerated after I asked Eric for a meeting with our accountant.
He had told me he was too busy.
The next day a new vendor agreement appeared.
His affair had given him a convenient reason to be absent, but his financial work had been deliberate.
I finally allowed myself to say it aloud.
"Eric wasn't just cheating on me. He was using the marriage."
Maya nodded.
"That's what the records suggest. The hearing will decide what we can prove now, not everything we ultimately believe."
At dawn I went to the foundation office and found eighteen envelopes stacked on my desk.
Leah had collected letters from the families whose grants were affected.
One included a child's drawing of a house beneath a yellow sun.
Another was a handwritten note from a veteran who said the foundation had helped him secure his first stable job in two years.
I read them all.
No dramatic speech could have given me more determination.
At nine o'clock, Eric's attorney proposed a private settlement.
Eric would agree to stop contesting the lake property and allow me to remain director of the foundation.
In exchange, I would waive claims connected to the disputed vendor payments and agree not to assist any investigation involving Richard.
The offer was dressed up as reconciliation.
It was an attempt to purchase my silence with things already legally in dispute.
Maya advised against accepting it.
I was not tempted.
I sent one response.
"No."
An hour later, Natalie arrived at the foundation office without an appointment.
She was crying, but her mascara remained perfectly in place.
"Richard says he'll leave me with nothing," she said.
"That's between you and Richard."
She grabbed my sleeve.
"If you make him testify, he's going to say the baby is Eric's."
I stared at her.
"What do you know that I don't?"
Natalie wiped her eyes.
May you like
"I know Richard paid someone to change the first test."
