Chapter 6 - The Forty-Eight Percent
The Singapore fund was worth nearly eighty million dollars.
My fraudulent forty-eight percent stake could theoretically be valued at more than thirty million.
I wanted to laugh.
I owned two pairs of maternity jeans.
My checking account contained nine hundred dollars.
Yet according to documents I had never signed, I was worth millions.
Maya explained the structure carefully.
“Someone used stolen money to purchase the stake through your company.”
“So I don’t actually own it.”
“Ownership is disputed.”
“But the paperwork says you do.”
Daniel paced beside the windows.
“Caleb wanted an outside entity to hold the shares.”
Charles nodded.
“So he used Robert.”
Maya looked at me.
“And Robert used Grace.”
The arrangement had worked because no one expected a twenty-one-year-old college student to examine international corporate filings.
Then I became pregnant with Daniel’s child.
Suddenly I was connected directly to the Whitmores.
That changed everything.
“If Daniel married me, somebody might eventually examine my finances.”
Maya nodded.
“Exactly.”
I closed my eyes.
“So Dad had to get rid of Daniel.”
“And Daniel had to be kept overseas.”
That afternoon, Tessa came to see me.
She walked into the townhouse carrying diapers, flowers, and an expression that told me something was wrong.
“I found something.”
She handed me an old phone.
“Your father gave me this last year when mine broke.”
I recognized it immediately.
Dad’s previous work phone.
“I never reset it.”
Tessa unlocked the device.
“There are deleted voice memos.”
One had been recorded eight months earlier.
Dad’s voice filled the room.
“You promised Daniel would stay away.”
Then another man answered.
“I promised to handle Daniel.”
We all recognized Caleb’s voice from Whitmore board meetings.
Dad sounded furious.
“She’s keeping the baby.”
“Then separate them.”
“How?”
Caleb laughed softly.
“You have access to her phone.”
The recording ended.
Daniel looked sick.
Tessa found another.
This one was shorter.
Dad whispered.
“What about Evelyn’s ledger?”
Caleb replied.
“You should have destroyed it four years ago.”
Then came Dad’s answer.
“I thought you took care of Evelyn.”
Nobody moved.
The recording ended.
Margaret covered her mouth.
Charles stared at the phone.
Maya immediately called federal investigators.
But before she could finish the call, Tessa’s phone buzzed.
She looked at the message.
Then at me.
Her face went white.
“What?”
She turned the screen around.
A photograph showed the front of her apartment building.
May you like
Underneath were four words.
RETURN THE PHONE, TESSA.
