Chapter 2 - Twelve Million Missing
Three months earlier, I still believed the Ashfords were complicated, not cruel.
I had met Julian at a children’s hospital fundraiser where he was supposed to give a speech and instead spent twenty minutes helping a little boy build a crooked tower out of plastic blocks. He had laughed when the tower fell. He had sat on the floor in an expensive suit and let the boy rebuild it on his knee.
That was the man I fell for.
The family’s foundation funded emergency housing, pediatric care, and winter grants for families who had nowhere safe to go. My mother, Ruth Sinclair, had helped establish the fund with Thomas Ashford, Julian’s grandfather. She believed money was useful only when it reached the people whose lives it could change.
After she died, Eleanor told me my mother’s shares had been swallowed by debt. I was sixteen, grieving, and too young to understand corporate filings. I accepted the explanation because it was easier than imagining someone had stolen from a dead woman.
When Julian proposed, I thought the Ashfords had finally made room for me.
Then the foundation’s finance director, Peter Ashford, called me into a glass office and slid a stack of printouts across the desk.
“Twelve million dollars went missing,” he said. “Your credentials approved the transfers.”
I stared at the pages. My name sat beneath each authorization, neat and unmistakable.
“I didn’t approve any of these.”
“Then someone used your access.”
“Tell the board that.”
Peter looked toward the closed door. “The board meets Friday. Eleanor wants a clean explanation before then.”
“An explanation or a scapegoat?”
He didn’t answer.
I went straight to Julian. He was in his office, jacket off, tie loose, the city shining behind him. I showed him the transfers and waited for him to say he would stand beside me.
Instead, he read the first page twice.
“Maybe there’s a system error,” he said.
“Then help me find it.”
“I will.” He kissed my forehead, but his eyes stayed on the documents. “Just don’t make accusations until we know more.”
That night, I checked my account history. Someone had logged in using my security token while I was at a hospital fundraiser across town.
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The login came from Ashford House.
And the device was registered to Julian.
