Chapter 4: Everything He Stole
Monday came with gray skies and Gerald Foss arriving at Crawford Technologies' downtown offices at precisely nine o'clock with a team of six auditors and a court-authorized access order.
I was not there for that part.
I didn't need to be.
I was in a coffee shop two blocks away with my brother Marcus and a woman named Diane Cho, who had been Crawford Technologies' head of finance for two and a half years and who had called Gerald's office on Sunday morning asking to speak with someone from the Sterling legal team.
She was already seated when we arrived.
Her coffee was untouched.
"I want immunity in writing before I say anything," she said.
Marcus looked at me.
"We're not prosecutors," I said.
"We're shareholders.
What you tell us stays in the civil proceeding unless you choose otherwise."
Diane wrapped both hands around her cup.
"I flagged three of the transfers internally.
In writing.
Twice." She looked up.
"Damian told me to remove the flags and reclassify them as vendor payments."
"Did you?"
"The first time, yes." Her jaw tightened.
"The second time I kept a copy of the original flag and the reclassification order.
Both with his signature."
She reached into her bag and placed a manila envelope on the table.
Marcus didn't move.
I picked it up.
Inside were two printed emails, each with Damian's digital signature and timestamp, each directing Diane to reclassify flagged transfers.
Attached to the second email was a spreadsheet.
The vendor names listed did not correspond to any supplier in Crawford Technologies' official records.
"How many transfers total?" I asked.
"Eleven that I know of.
The total is just under four hundred thousand dollars."
The coffee shop was quiet around us.
Someone's espresso machine hissed.
"Why are you bringing this now?" Marcus asked.
Diane looked at him steadily.
"Because I watched him throw divorce papers at his wife in front of three hundred people and tell her she couldn't give him a child." She paused.
"I have a daughter.
She's seven."
I put the envelope in my bag.
"Gerald will want to speak with you formally," I said.
"Today if possible."
"I know." She finally picked up her coffee.
"I've been waiting for someone to ask."
By noon, the auditors had flagged fourteen accounts.
By two o'clock, Damian's personal attorney had filed a motion to delay access to three of them on grounds of attorney-client privilege.
Gerald called me from the lobby of the building.
"He's fighting the access order?"
"His attorney is.
Damian himself hasn't appeared."
"Where is he?"
"That," Gerald said, "is a good question."
I called Marcus, who was parked outside Damian's apartment building on the north side of the city.
"His car is here," Marcus said.
"He hasn't come out."
"Is Chloe with him?"
"Her car isn't here."
I thought about the necklace.
Fifty thousand dollars.
Nine other transfers.
Four hundred thousand total, minimum.
"Marcus.
Check whether Chloe has taken any flights in the last forty-eight hours."
A pause.
"How would I—"
"Call Dad.
He'll know who to call."
I hung up and sat in my car in the parking garage beneath my hotel.
The printed page Gerald had given me on Friday night was still in my coat pocket.
I had read it four times.
Each time the number at the bottom felt less like a number and more like a decision Damian had made, quietly, over years, while I organized his events and corrected his presentations and lost two pregnancies in the apartment above his office.
My phone rang.
It was a number I didn't recognize.
I answered.
"Alyssa." Damian's voice.
Flat.
Careful.
"I need to talk to you before this goes any further."
"You have Gerald's number."
"I'm not calling Gerald.
I'm calling you." A breath.
"I want to meet.
Just the two of us.
No attorneys."
"That's not something I'm going to do."
"Alyssa, listen to me.
There are things about the company — about the transfers — that are more complicated than they look on paper.
If the audit goes forward without context, people are going to draw the wrong conclusions."
"Then give the context to Gerald."
"Gerald works for your father."
"Gerald works for the trust," I said.
"Which I control."
Silence.
"I made mistakes," Damian said.
"I know that.
Friday night was — I handled it badly.
But if you let this audit run without talking to me first, you're going to find things that will hurt both of us."
I looked at the concrete wall of the parking garage.
"Damian.
You told three hundred people I couldn't give you a child."
He didn't answer.
"Whatever the audit finds," I said, "I didn't put it there."
I ended the call.
My phone buzzed thirty seconds later.
Marcus.
*Chloe Bennett boarded a flight to Cancún Saturday morning.
One-way ticket.*
I stared at the message for a moment.
Then I called Gerald.
"He's going to try to run," I said.
"His passport has already been flagged," Gerald said.
"Standard procedure once the access order was filed." A pause.
"Alyssa.
The three accounts his attorney tried to block this morning — we got a look at one of them before the motion landed."
"And?"
"The transfers didn't go to Chloe."
I sat up straighter.
"Then where did they go?"
"A holding company registered in Delaware," Gerald said.
"Incorporated eight months before he met you.
The sole director is listed as a Thomas Crawford."
The name landed like something dropped from a height.
"His brother," I said.
May you like
"Yes," Gerald said.
"His brother."
