Chapter 6 - The Woman at the Gate
I left Ashford House without my coat because Eleanor’s security team had blocked the hall and I refused to let them see me scramble. Outside, freezing rain needled my face. I walked down the long drive until a black sedan rolled beside me.
The driver lowered his window. “Ms. Sinclair? Martha sent me.”
I didn’t get in until he gave me the code phrase Martha and I had agreed on: “Blue string, broken seal.”
Martha met me at her office with Detective Aaron Bell, a financial-crimes investigator she trusted. He explained that the police had opened a preliminary inquiry into the missing funds, but a public accusation without authenticated records could let the suspects destroy evidence and claim defamation.
“We need the original authorization trail,” he said. “Not screenshots. Not copies from a system they control.”
“Then we get it from the bank.”
“The bank needs a formal request. Your shareholder status helps, but it won’t happen overnight.”
“I don’t have overnight. They’re planning to blame me at the Christmas gala.”
Bell studied me. “Then we need to know what they’ll do next.”
I had one idea. Peter Ashford had always treated me like a harmless outsider. He also hated Eleanor more than he feared her. If he thought the money trail would end with him, he might talk.
I called him from a prepaid phone and asked to meet at a diner near the interstate. He arrived fifteen minutes late, sweating through his collar though the restaurant was cold.
“You shouldn’t have called,” he said.
“You shouldn’t have used my name.”
“I didn’t create the transfers.”
“But you approved them.”
He looked over my shoulder. “Richard said it was a bridge loan. Eleanor said the paperwork was handled.”
“And Julian?”
Peter rubbed both hands over his face. “He signed one of the releases. He knew enough to ask questions and chose not to.”
“Where are the original records?”
“In the old archive room at Ashford House. The digital copies can be changed. The paper files can’t.”
“Can you get them?”
“I’m not going back there.”
“Then tell me what you’re afraid of.”
He leaned closer. “Richard isn’t just stealing money. He’s paying a contractor to certify apartments that aren’t safe. If anyone opens those buildings before the repairs are done, people could die.”
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My phone vibrated. A message from an unknown number appeared on the screen: Ask Peter what happened to the first inspector.
When I looked up, Peter was already running for the door.
