Chapter 3 - THE FORENSIC AUDIT
By three o'clock that afternoon, the conference room at Harrison & Croft Attorneys looked like a war room.
Stack after stack of white paper binders covered the long glass conference table. Arthur Harrison, a fifty-eight-year-old senior partner with razor-sharp blue eyes and gray hair cut like a military officer's, sat at the head of the table. Beside him sat Marcus Vance, a certified forensic accountant whose face was completely unreadable.
I sat across from them, holding a pencil, watching Marcus slide a thin green folder toward me.
"Evelyn," Arthur began, leaning back in his leather chair. "I won't sugarcoat this. The preliminary findings from the last thirty-six months are seriously concerning."
"Show me," I said cleanly.
Marcus Vance opened the green folder. "For the past three years, Bennett Landscaping & Design has reported net operating losses averaging three hundred thousand dollars annually. However, the company's gross revenue has actually increased by eighteen percent."
I frowned, set my pencil down. "If revenue increased, why were there operating losses?"
Marcus pulled out a series of highlighted spreadsheet prints. "Because your son has been running what can only be described as a personal lifestyle fund through the corporate accounts."
He pointed to a column of figures.
"Item one: Bennett Landscaping leases four luxury vehicles," Marcus explained. "None of them are trucks or utility vans. Two Range Rovers, a Mercedes-Benz sedan, and a Porsche Macan. The Porsche is registered to Paige Bennett. The Mercedes is registered to Lorraine Vance."
My stomach tightened, but I kept my breathing steady. "Lorraine Vance is not an employee of Bennett Landscaping."
"No," Marcus said. "Nor is she an independent contractor. Yet, for the past twenty-four months, she has been listed on the company payroll as a 'Senior Aesthetic Consultant', receiving an executive salary of eight thousand five hundred dollars a month."
I closed my eyes for three seconds, letting the cold reality settle into my marrow.
Eight thousand five hundred dollars a month. One hundred and two thousand dollars a year. Paid directly to Lorraine for doing absolutely nothing, while Daniel came to my house twice a year, sitting on my living room sofa with tears in his eyes, telling me he couldn't afford to pay his crew's health insurance without a personal transfer from my savings.
"There's more, Evelyn," Arthur said softly, his voice full of solemn empathy.
"Tell me everything, Arthur," I said, opening my eyes. "Don't hold back a single line."
Marcus turned the page. "In March of last year, Daniel signed a secondary mortgage guarantee on the company's main equipment yard. He used your signature under a limited financial power of attorney that you granted him during his knee surgery three years ago."
I sat up straight. "That power of attorney was temporary. It was supposed to expire after ninety days!"
"It was supposed to," Arthur interrupted sharply. "But Daniel never filed the revocation papers with the county clerk. He kept the document activity in his corporate vault. He used it to secure a two-million-dollar line of credit from Apex Commercial Capital."
"Where did the two million dollars go?" I asked, my voice dropped into a quiet, dangerous whisper.
Marcus slides another document across the glass. "Eight hundred thousand went to settle debt from Paige's high-end clothing boutique downtown, which has been losing money since the day it opened. Four hundred thousand went into a private investment fund in Lorraine's name. The rest was used to pay the interest on previous personal loans."
Silence filled the room. The air feels heavy, metallic, and cold.
I had given my son my life. I had given him my husband's legacy. I had trusted him implicitly because he was my child, my flesh and blood, the boy I had tucked into bed every night for eighteen years.
And in return, he had turned my husband's company into a personal piggy bank for his wife and her mother, while preparing to strip me of my lake house so Lorraine could have a guest cottage.
"Evelyn," Arthur said, leaning forward and resting his hands on the table. "This constitutes severe corporate fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and illegal conversion of assets. If you file a formal complaint with the district attorney's office, Daniel could face criminal charges."
I looked out the high glass windows of the office building at the city skyline below.
The sun was setting, casting long, dark shadows across the concrete towers.
"No criminal charges," I said quietly.
Arthur blinked. "Evelyn, he embezzled millions from your company."
"If I send him to prison, Paige will paint herself as the martyr, Lorraine will keep the cash in her private fund, and my grandson will grow up believing their grandmother destroyed their father," I said, my voice as hard and unyielding as iron. "I won't give them that victory."
"Then what do you want to do?" Arthur asked.
I turned back to the table, my eyes sweeping over the spreadsheet numbers, the luxury car leases, and the fraud payroll entries for Lorraine Vance.
"I want control back," I said clearly. "Every share. Every account. Every property title. I want Lorraine stripped of her payroll by five o'clock today. I want the luxury leases terminated by Friday. And I want Daniel brought into this office at nine o'clock tomorrow morning for a restructuring meeting."
May you like
"He won't like it," Arthur remarked.
"He doesn't have to like it," I said, standing up and pulling on my leather gloves. "He isn't the owner anymore. He's an employee who is about to learn what a real job feels like."
