Chapter 11 - THE SPREADSHEET DANIEL LEFT BEHIND
The spreadsheet had six tabs.
Julia told me not to open any of them until she made a forensic copy.
I stared at the attachment on my screen while she called a digital-evidence specialist.
Every instinct in me wanted answers immediately.
But I had watched too many people destroy evidence in the last twenty-four hours.
I was not going to become one of them by accident.
We saved the original email exactly as it arrived.
We exported the headers.
We documented the time.
Then Julia opened a copy.
The first tab was labeled RELATED PARTY.
Rows of transfers filled the screen.
Dates.
Account numbers.
Approvals.
Amounts.
The transfers stretched back four years.
Some were small enough to disappear inside a company the size of Whitmore Hospitality Group.
Seventy-two thousand dollars.
One hundred forty thousand.
Two hundred ten thousand.
Others were impossible to ignore.
Three million.
Eight million.
Twelve and a half million.
All of them flowed through vendors with bland names.
Consulting companies.
Renovation contractors.
Strategic advisory firms.
Most eventually landed in accounts connected to PBR Holdings.
"How much?" I asked.
Julia used the spreadsheet total.
She went quiet.
"How much?"
"Eighty-six million dollars."
I stared at the number.
"Missing?"
"Transferred."
"To Preston?"
"We don't know yet."
"The merger would move hundreds of millions more."
"Yes."
"So this is already happening."
"It appears something has been happening."
I scrolled to the approval column.
Initials appeared beside many transfers.
R.W.
Richard Whitmore.
D.C.
Daniel Cross.
P.W.
Preston Whitmore.
Then I saw E.H.
Evelyn Hayes.
My initials.
My married name.
"No."
Julia leaned closer.
"What?"
I pointed.
"I did not approve that."
There were thirty-one entries attributed to me.
The first dated back nearly three years.
"I never saw these."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Could you have approved batches through a proxy?"
"No."
"Electronic approvals?"
"No."
"Board consent packages?"
"I sign only formal annual resolutions."
Julia's face tightened.
"Then someone may have used your identity."
I felt nauseated.
The fake theft allegation at the wedding was not creating a lie from nothing.
It was preparing the audience to believe a lie already hidden in company records.
If my father accused me of financial misconduct after Sophie was publicly accused of theft, the stories would reinforce each other.
Like mother, like daughter.
A dishonest child raised by a dishonest woman.
The cruelty was strategic.
"Open the second tab."
It was labeled SIGNATURES.
Scanned documents filled the cells as links.
Julia clicked the first.
A wire authorization appeared.
My name sat at the bottom.
The signature looked like mine.
Almost.
The loop in the E was wrong.
The angle of the final stroke was too high.
I had signed my name thousands of times.
I knew the difference.
"Forged."
"Likely."
"Not likely."
I leaned closer.
"Look at the y."
Julia did.
"You don't close it like that?"
"Never."
We opened five more.
Same imitation.
Same small mistakes.
Whoever copied my signature had practiced.
They had practiced enough to fool someone who did not know me.
They had not practiced enough to fool me.
The third tab was labeled EMAILS.
My hands started trembling before we opened it.
The messages appeared to come from my company address.
I had not used that account actively in years.
I retained it only because I sat on the shareholder advisory committee.
The first message approved a consulting payment.
The second instructed Daniel to move funds.
The third said something that made my blood freeze.
Keep this off the regular board package.
I had never written that sentence.
I had never seen the message.
Julia opened the technical details embedded in Daniel's notes.
"He flagged the login locations."
"Where?"
"Most of the messages were sent from the corporate office."
"I barely go there."
"Exactly."
"Which computer?"
"Daniel wrote terminal seventeen."
I knew terminal seventeen.
Preston's executive assistant used it.
"Who had access?"
"We'll need logs."
The fourth tab was labeled WEDDING.
I stopped breathing.
Julia clicked it.
Only nine rows appeared.
Each row contained a date, a payment, and a note.
FLORAL CHANGE - 4,800.
PRIVATE SECURITY ADJUSTMENT - 20,000.
KELLER BALANCE - 50,000.
MEDIA CONSULTANT - 35,000.
LEGAL DRAFT - 18,500.
SCHOOL BACKGROUND - 7,500.
CPS CONSULT - 5,000.
I stared at the last two.
"School background."
Julia's face went pale.
"CPS consult."
The call to Sophie's school.
The retaliatory report.
Those were not frantic moves after the assault.
They had been budgeted.
"Look at the dates."
The school background payment was made four days before the wedding.
The CPS consult was made two days before.
My heart started pounding.
"They planned to report me before Preston hit her."
"It looks that way."
"They planned to call her school."
"Yes."
"They planned every part of it."
The fifth tab was labeled MONDAY.
This one contained board projections.
Votes.
Share percentages.
Expected absences.
My name was highlighted in red.
Beside it was one phrase.
SUSPEND BEFORE 9:00.
I leaned back.
"They needed me removed before the board meeting."
"Yes."
"And the wedding was the setup."
"Yes."
The final tab was labeled INSURANCE.
At first, I did not understand.
There were policy numbers connected to executives.
Key-person insurance.
Indemnification coverage.
A large policy on Daniel Cross.
I looked at Julia.
"Why is this here?"
She read Daniel's note in the final column.
IF I DISAPPEAR, CHECK CHANGE OF BENEFICIARY.
The room went cold.
"What does that mean?"
Julia clicked a linked document.
Three months earlier, the beneficiary on a twenty-million-dollar key-person policy covering Daniel had been changed.
The old beneficiary was Whitmore Hospitality Group.
The new beneficiary was a subsidiary controlled by PBR Holdings.
"Can they do that?"
"Not normally without disclosure."
"Daniel knew."
"He discovered it."
"And now he is missing."
Julia immediately called Vega.
I listened while she explained.
Vega's questions became shorter.
Where was Daniel last seen?
Who knew he sent the email?
Was the scheduled email automatic?
Could we identify his personal devices?
Then she asked to speak to me.
"When did you last speak with Daniel?"
"Two months ago."
"What about?"
"A hotel refinancing vote."
"Did he sound afraid?"
"No."
"Did he say anything about Preston or your father?"
I thought back.
Daniel had made one strange comment after the meeting.
At the time, I had dismissed it.
"He told me to read everything I sign this year."
Vega paused.
"Exact words?"
"He said, 'This is not the year to trust summaries.'"
"Anything else?"
"He asked whether Sophie still liked detective books."
That memory hurt in a different way now.
Daniel had always brought her books for birthdays.
"We are putting out an alert for him," Vega said.
"Do you think he's in danger?"
"I think we should find him quickly."
After the call, Julia reopened the spreadsheet.
"There's metadata in the file."
"What kind?"
"Last modified time."
"Yesterday?"
"No."
She stared at the screen.
"Today."
My pulse jumped.
"What time?"
"4:58 p.m."
Seventeen minutes before the scheduled email arrived.
"Then Daniel is alive."
"Maybe."
I did not correct her this time.
Someone could have opened the file.
Someone could have edited it.
Someone could have triggered the email.
Then Julia found another field.
Last author.
Not Daniel Cross.
Not Evelyn Hayes.
Not Richard Whitmore.
The username was OWENM.
I stared at it.
"Owen?"
Julia shook her head.
"Different Owen, probably."
Then my phone rang.
It was Detective Vega.
"We recovered the deleted photo from Owen's tablet."
"The petition?"
"Yes."
"Is it clear?"
"Clear enough."
"What does it show?"
Her answer turned the spreadsheet into something even darker.
"Daniel Cross is in the bridal suite in the background."
"What?"
"He was there with your father and Preston."
"Then why would he send me evidence against them?"
"I don't know."
"Was he helping them?"
"I don't know."
"Is he a witness or part of it?"
"We don't know yet."
May you like
The spreadsheet had warned me not to trust Richard.
Now the photograph warned me not to trust the man who created the spreadsheet either.
