A Rich Woman Pushed a Hotel Maid Into a Fountain and Laughed—But One Phone Call Made Her Entire Family Regret Everything!

Graham held up a folder as though he were presenting a prize.

"Northline's ownership was transferred to a new investor consortium at nine this morning," he announced. "Mrs. Bennett is either lying or confused."

Vivian gave a little laugh. "Perhaps the fountain water went to her head."

I looked at Dana. She was already scrolling through the documents on her tablet.

"There was an attempted transfer," she said. "But the company's transfer agent hasn't registered it."

Graham leaned toward the microphone. "Legal technicalities."

"Ownership is a legal technicality," I said. "It's rather the point."

Dana turned the tablet toward me. A scanned instruction purportedly directed Northline's custodian to transfer its Aster Grand shares to an entity called Harbor Crest Partners. The authorization bore my name. So did a second document, allegedly signed by my company's chief operating officer, Sam Patel.

"Sam wouldn't sign this," I said.

"He didn't," Dana replied. "He's on a flight to Boston. The document was submitted using an old electronic signature token that should have been disabled last month."

I remembered Sam warning me that a contractor had mishandled account credentials during our acquisition. We'd paid to replace the system. Had someone kept a copy?

Graham saw my hesitation and mistook it for defeat.

"You have ten minutes to stop embarrassing yourself," he said. "Then my attorneys will discuss the damages."

I turned to the guests. "For nineteen days I cleaned your rooms. I collected your used towels and emptied your trash cans. I saw payroll records altered after people clocked out. I saw workers threatened for asking where their money went. And I watched the hotel president's wife throw a woman into a fountain because she could."

Vivian shouted, "Prove it!"

"We will," Dana answered.

The auditor stepped up beside her. "We've preserved the ownership ledger and the submission logs. There's no completed sale. The disputed paperwork has been flagged with the custodian."

Graham's jaw tightened. His phone lit up with a message he hid against his palm.

I knew then that the attempted transfer wasn't his last move. It was only meant to buy him time.

Dana leaned close to my ear. "The operating bank has frozen outgoing transfers while it checks the fraud alert. Even the workers' payday file is on hold."

I looked toward Ana, who hadn't received a full paycheck in three weeks.

"How long?" I asked.