Chapter 4 - The First Audit
The forensic accountant’s name was Priya Desai.
She did not care about family drama.
That was exactly why I hired her.
She cared about numbers.
By Thursday, she found the first major discrepancy.
A consulting agreement between Arden Vale Design Group and Ravel Strategic Image Inc.
Bianca’s company.
Annual value.
$240,000.
My signature appeared at the bottom.
I had never signed it.
Priya enlarged the document.
“It is a digital insertion.”
She said.
“Someone copied your signature from another file.”
“Who had access?”
“Several people.”
Adrian.
Our CFO.
My executive assistant.
And Genevieve, indirectly, through family files Adrian sometimes stored on a shared home drive.
Then Priya found a second agreement.
And a third.
Bianca had billed almost $610,000 over eighteen months.
Some invoices were vague.
Reputation positioning.
Family brand alignment.
Investor-relations consulting.
Event strategy.
One invoice charged $38,000 for “heritage narrative development.”
I stared at it.
“What does that even mean?”
Priya shrugged.
“It means someone paid it.”
And that someone was Adrian.
The money did not come only from corporate accounts.
Some came from a home-equity line tied to the townhouse Adrian and I jointly owned.
He had drawn funds without telling me.
Marisol examined the loan paperwork.
My initials appeared on two pages.
Fake.
Again.
“This is getting worse.”
She said.
I looked toward the city.
“No.”
“It is getting clearer.”
By Friday, Marisol obtained an order restricting further disposition of certain marital assets.
Adrian’s lawyer responded immediately.
He accused me of attempting to ruin Adrian professionally because of jealousy.
There it was.
The story they always planned to tell.
Jealous wife.
Emotional wife.
Vindictive wife.
I handed Marisol the hotel photographs.
Not for public release.
For evidence.
Then the phone rang.
Priya answered.
She listened.
Her face changed.
“What?”
I asked.
She placed the phone on speaker.
Our bank’s internal fraud investigator had found a wire authorization.
$1.2 million.
Scheduled for Monday.
Recipient.
Arden Family Holdings.
Purpose.
Private debt stabilization.
Authorized by Adrian.
Second authorization.
Supposedly by me.
May you like
The transfer had been canceled only because Marisol froze the account first.
If I had sat quietly at Elodie’s wedding, more than a million dollars would have disappeared two days later.
