“Did she sign the visitor log?” I asked.
“No,” Thomas said. “Mr. Cole told us she was a prospective vendor and did not need a temporary security badge.”
The basement seemed to grow colder as I stood beside the cabinet. The heavy freight schedules on the upper floors of the building, the diesel trucks idling in the yard, and the eleven years of my marriage felt distant, replaced by the specific numbers printed on the lease.
My husband had used our family company to build a quiet, expensive life for a woman I had never met.
I folded the copy of the lease and held the paper against my chest, the basement air cold and smelling of old dust.
The folded paper stayed in my coat pocket until eleven o’clock the next morning, when I laid it flat on the dark wood desk in Naomi Price’s office.
Naomi did not look up immediately. She tapped her heavy silver pen against her leather folder, her eyes tracking the lines of the lease I had retrieved from the basement.
“This is a residential lease for a double unit on High Street,” Naomi said, her voice dropping into its formal, legal register. “The tenant is listed as Kelsey Vance. But the routing number on the monthly security deposit belongs to the Whitmore Freight promotional account.”
“I need a full forensic audit,” I said. “Every dollar that went from our marketing fund to Oakhaven Events over the last three years.”
Naomi stopped tapping her pen and looked at me. She reached into her drawer and pulled out a small metal tin of peppermints, sliding it toward me.
“Your father always kept these in his glove box,” Naomi said, her tone softening for a brief second. “He said a dry throat makes for poor negotiating. Take one, Claire.”
