Chapter 8 - The Employee They Buried With a Lie
I remembered Naomi Reed.
She was thirty-two when she left Vale Hospitality.
A senior compliance specialist.
Quiet.
Sharp.
The kind of employee who noticed a payment made twice and refused to accept that someone had simply made a mistake.
Dominic called her paranoid.
Margaret called her difficult.
I called her excellent.
Then, three years earlier, Naomi had suddenly disappeared from the company.
The official explanation was that she had misappropriated nearly $600,000.
I hadn't been allowed to examine the investigation.
Dominic told me the matter was being handled by outside counsel.
When I asked to speak with Naomi, he said she'd signed a separation agreement prohibiting contact with company employees.
I remembered arguing with him.
“Naomi wouldn't steal.”
“People surprise you, Evelyn.”
“You don't know her.”
“And you don't know everything.”
For once, he had been right.
I hadn't known everything.
But now, sitting in Arthur's private office, I began to understand why I had been kept away.
“Where is Naomi?” I asked Daniel.
He shook his head.
“I don't know.”
“Is she alive?”
“Yes. Arthur's investigator made contact with her last year, according to a record I received.”
“Why didn't anyone tell me?”
“Because she was frightened.”
“Of Dominic?”
“Of whoever arranged the false accusations.”
Simone examined the photograph.
“Daniel, did Arthur leave a way to contact her?”
“There may be something in the safe.”
We opened it with the assistance of Arthur's estate representative, who had authority to access the records.
Inside were bank statements, a small encrypted storage device, and a folder labeled HARBOR LIGHT.
The folder contained correspondence between Arthur and Naomi.
The first letter was dated four months before Arthur died.
Mr. Vale, I believe invoices are being generated for renovation materials that never reached the properties.
The second letter was more alarming.
I traced one vendor account to a company connected to Graham Whitmore. I don't think your son is being told where the money ultimately goes.
A third letter arrived two weeks later.
Someone accessed my workstation using an administrator credential after I left the building. The next morning, I was accused of taking funds from the employee assistance account.
I looked at Simone.
“They framed her.”
“We have evidence suggesting that,” she said. “We still need independent verification.”
The final letter was handwritten.
I'm leaving New York. They threatened my brother. I don't want your money. I just want my name back.
I put the letter down.
For years, Naomi had carried a reputation she didn't deserve.
And I had attended company events beside the people who destroyed it.
“We need to find her.”
Simone nodded.
“But we need to do it carefully.”
I reached for my phone.
Then stopped.
Naomi wasn't a witness I could simply summon.
She was a person who had lost her career and perhaps her entire sense of safety.
I wanted to ask her permission before pulling her back into the nightmare.
Daniel found an old forwarding address in Vermont.
Simone's investigator began working through legitimate channels to establish contact.
Meanwhile, we examined the documents.
By evening, the outline of the scheme was becoming clear.
Vale Hospitality paid inflated renovation invoices.
Those funds traveled through shell companies.
Some appeared to return as purported outside investment.
The company looked better financed than it actually was.
And the pending merger would have moved several valuable hotels into a new structure controlled by Graham's investment group.
The money wasn't simply disappearing.
It was being recycled to create the appearance of legitimate investment capital.
But there was a problem.
A large one.
The scheme required someone with access to Vale Hospitality's internal payment systems.
Someone who could override controls.
Someone whose credentials would not immediately attract suspicion.
Someone like me.
My authorization code had been used.
My signature had been copied.
My name had been placed on documents I had never approved.
I looked at Simone.
“If the transactions are investigated, they're going to come after me.”
She didn't soften the answer.
“They may.”
I felt physically sick.
Rose was sleeping upstairs in the room Maribel had prepared.
I had given birth less than a week ago.
Now I was facing the possibility that someone had deliberately built a financial paper trail pointing toward me.
“Simone, could Dominic have done this?”
“He had access to your office.”
“He knew my passwords for years.”
“We'll have to establish exactly when and how the credentials were used.”
I stared at Arthur's letter.
He had tried to protect me.
But the documents suggested someone else had been planning for years to make me responsible if the scheme collapsed.
At 8:43 p.m., Simone's phone rang.
Her investigator had found Naomi.
She was living under her own name in a small Vermont town.
She had agreed to speak.
On one condition.
Evelyn had to come without Dominic, Margaret, or anyone from the Vale board.
Then the investigator added something else.
Naomi had given him a message.
Four words.
“Ask about the baby.”
I looked at the phone.
“What baby?”
The investigator answered carefully.
“Naomi says a child was involved in the original cover-up.”
I stood so quickly that pain shot through my abdomen.
Simone caught my arm.
“Evelyn.”
But I barely heard her.
May you like
Because there was only one question in my mind.
Whose child had been used to keep Naomi silent?
