Chapter 4 - My Signature

I laughed.

It sounded wrong in the small cabin.

“Northline is mine.”

Daniel’s face changed.

Only slightly.

But I saw it.

Valery saw it too.

“What do you mean, yours?” she asked.

“Daniel formed it for me. An investment vehicle.”

“When?”

“Last spring.”

Valery went still.

Daniel moved between us again. “This conversation is over.”

“No,” I said. “It just started.”

He leaned close enough that only I could hear him.

“You are embarrassing yourself in front of staff.”

There it was.

The sentence he used whenever he wanted me to question my own reaction.

At restaurants. At parties. Once at my sister’s house when I asked why he had moved fifty thousand dollars without telling me.

I had apologized that night.

I didn’t apologize now.

I pulled out my phone and opened the banking app connected to Northline.

Daniel’s eyes dropped to the screen.

“Claire, don’t.”

That was all I needed.

The account had always been mostly dormant. He told me it was for tax planning and future property purchases.

The balance on Friday had been $42,811.

Now it showed $912.47.

I refreshed it.

Same number.

My heart slammed once, hard.

“Where is the money?”

Daniel frowned at the screen as if he were seeing it for the first time.

“What money?”

“Forty-one thousand nine hundred dollars.”

“I moved it for the vineyard deposit.”

“What vineyard?”

He hesitated.

Valery looked at me.

“Check outgoing transfers.”

Daniel turned on her. “Stay out of this.”

I tapped the account history.

Three transfers had gone out that morning.

$14,900.

$14,900.

$12,098.

All to the same recipient.

Alder Crest Consulting.

I didn’t recognize the name.

Valery did.

Her face lost color.

“What?” I said.

She looked at Daniel.

“That company was on my mother’s old files.”

Daniel grabbed his suitcase handle again.

“Claire, we are getting off this plane.”

The aircraft began to roll.

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The sound of the wheels over the taxiway made the glasses in the cabinet tremble. Daniel stared straight ahead, but his right knee bounced once, stopped, then started again. I had seen him negotiate eight-figure contracts without blinking. Whatever waited at the end of this flight scared him more than losing money. That thought was almost worse than the missing money itself.

Private Jet Story - 20 Chapters