Chapter 5 - THE BASEMENT FILES
Beatriz did not run toward the front door.
She ran toward the lower level.
That told me exactly where to go.
I followed.
She reached the wine cellar first.
“Stop.”
I said.
She kept moving.
Behind a rack of Rioja bottles was a narrow storage room normally used for property records.
The door had been fitted with a digital keypad.
That was new.
I grabbed Beatriz’s wrist before she entered the code.
“Move.”
“Let go of me.”
“Move away from the door.”
She pulled free.
“You’re frightening me.”
I almost laughed.
“My daughter has been frightened for three months.”
“You don’t get to use that word.”
Isabella appeared at the top of the stairs.
I immediately softened my voice.
“Sweetheart, stay upstairs.”
She nodded.
Then she said,
“The code is 0314.”
Beatriz went still.
I looked at her.
March 14.
Our wedding anniversary.
I entered it.
The lock clicked.
Inside were eight file boxes.
Two laptops.
Stacks of invoices.
Company seals.
And a portable document scanner.
I opened the first box.
Payroll.
The second contained vendor contracts.
Many names were familiar.
Companies we had used for years.
But the banking information had been changed.
Payments that should have gone to landscaping, security, catering, and household employees were being redirected.
One account belonged to a Portuguese consulting company.
Sol Mar Advisory.
I knew nothing about it.
Beatriz appeared behind me.
“Mateo handled those.”
“So you knew nothing?”
“No.”
I held up the second phone.
“Your messages say otherwise.”
She stared at me.
Then her shoulders dropped slightly.
“It wasn’t stealing.”
“What do you call taking money for employees you fired?”
“Reallocation.”
I actually smiled.
She hated that.
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“How much?”
“Maybe seven hundred thousand.”
The files suggested more.
Much more.
I opened another folder.
Inside was a copy of my electronic signature.
Not an image.
A signing certificate.
Used to authenticate corporate documents.
I stopped breathing.
Only three people had authorized access.
Me.
My chief legal officer in Madrid.
And Mateo for limited estate contracts.
“What did you sign with this?”
I asked.
Beatriz shook her head.
“Nothing.”
I held up the certificate.
“Wrong answer.”
Then I found a document dated eleven days earlier.
A preliminary sale agreement.
Not for the villa.
For twelve hectares of coastal land near Estepona.
My company owned it.
Current value exceeded twenty million euros.
Seller authorization carried my digital signature.
Buyer.
Sol Mar Advisory.
The same company receiving the stolen payroll money.
Price.
Six million euros.
They were preparing to sell twenty million euros of my company’s land to their own shell company for six.
Then I found the closing date.
Tomorrow.
9:30 a.m.
May you like
My early return had interrupted more than an affair.
I had walked into the final twenty-four hours of a multimillion-euro theft.
