Chapter 4: The Envelope with Her Name on It
The paper inside was a single page.
Typed, not handwritten.
No letterhead.
No signature.
*Emma — Cole Marston is not who you believe him to be.
The wedding is not what you believe it to be.
Ask him what happened to the Delacroix contract in September.
Ask him who signed for the Harwick warehouse transfer.
Ask him why the Marston Group's Port Mercy subsidiary has been running at a loss for three years while his personal accounts have grown.
He will lie.
He has been lying for a long time.
Someone who knows the truth.*
Emma read it twice.
"When did you get this?"
"It was left at my office six weeks ago," Adrian said.
"Slipped under the door overnight.
No camera caught anyone delivering it."
"Six weeks." Emma folded the page carefully.
"You've known about this for six weeks and you said nothing."
"I needed to verify it first.
I wasn't going to bring accusations to you based on an anonymous letter."
"And have you?
Verified it?"
A pause that lasted one second too long.
"Partially," he said.
Emma handed the envelope back to him.
He didn't take it.
"Keep it," he said.
"You should have it."
She looked down at it in her hands.
Her name on the front, in handwriting that belonged to no one she could identify.
Someone had known her name.
Someone had known about the wedding.
Someone had wanted her to find out — but had chosen to go to Adrian instead of to her directly.
"The Delacroix contract," she said.
"What is it?"
"A commercial lease agreement.
One of our largest.
The tenant is a logistics company that operates out of three Marston-owned warehouses on the south harbor." Adrian sat back down.
"In September, the contract came up for renewal.
Standard process.
It should have gone through our legal team, been reviewed, countersigned by me."
"But it wasn't."
"It was signed by Cole.
Using a signature authorization that had expired eighteen months earlier."
Emma absorbed that.
"Is that illegal?"
"It creates significant liability.
Whether it crosses into fraud depends on what Cole received in exchange for signing it."
"And what did he receive?"
"That," Adrian said, "is what I've been trying to determine for six weeks."
Emma stood again.
She walked three steps toward the water and stopped.
The harbor promenade was emptying as the afternoon darkened, the cold sharpening at the edges of the wind.
She was still wearing Adrian's coat.
"Cole handles operations for the Marston Group," she said.
"He told me that.
He said you handled the financial side and he handled the day-to-day."
"That's accurate."
"So he has access.
To contracts.
To authorizations.
To the warehouses."
"Yes."
"And the Harwick warehouse transfer mentioned in the letter—"
"I found it last week.
A property transfer executed four months ago.
The Harwick warehouse moved from Marston Group ownership into a numbered holding company.
The transfer was authorized by Cole." Adrian's voice was level, but something underneath it was not.
"I didn't authorize it.
Our board didn't authorize it.
It was done quietly, during a period when I was managing the settlement of a separate legal matter and my attention was divided."
Emma turned back to face him.
"He stole from your company."
"He transferred a significant asset without authorization.
Whether that constitutes theft in the legal sense is a question my attorney is currently working through."
"Adrian." She looked at him directly.
"Did he steal from your company?"
His jaw tightened.
"Yes," he said.
"I believe he did."
The wind came off the water and pushed a loose strand of hair across Emma's face.
She didn't move to fix it.
"And Tessa," she said.
"Where does she fit into this?"
"I don't know yet.
The apartment could be a gift from a man who was spending money he shouldn't have.
Or she could be more involved."
"She knew about the affair for five months.
She helped him hide it."
"Yes."
"She planned the bridal shower.
She helped me choose the dress.
She sat in the emergency room with our mother and brought us coffee." Emma's voice stayed flat.
"She's capable of sustained deception."
"Yes," Adrian said again.
Emma looked at the envelope in her hand.
"The person who wrote this — do you have any idea who it was?"
"I have a suspicion." He hesitated.
"There's a woman named Diane Forsythe.
She was the Marston Group's chief financial officer until fourteen months ago, when Cole pushed for her removal.
He told me she was creating internal conflict.
I believed him." Something crossed his face.
"I shouldn't have."
"You think she wrote it."
"I think she saw something before she left and waited until she had enough to say it."
Emma's phone buzzed in her coat pocket — her own coat, somewhere upstairs in the hotel room she'd booked to store the wedding supplies.
This was Adrian's coat.
The buzzing was coming from inside it.
She looked at him.
He reached into the inner pocket and withdrew his own phone.
His expression changed.
"What is it?" Emma asked.
He turned the screen toward her.
A message from the same initials as before: *Cole just called someone.
Not Tessa.
Different number.
Registered to a law firm in Boston.*
Emma read it twice.
"He's already calling a lawyer," she said.
"It appears so."
"Before he even knows what you've found."
May you like
Adrian looked at her steadily.
"Which means he already knows there's something to find."
