Chapter 6: Behind the Founder’s Portrait
We reached the estate with a court officer and an emergency preservation order at four that afternoon.
Eleanor stood inside the foyer where she had ordered me to open my suitcase the night before.
“You are not entering my home.”
The officer held out the order.
“The document cabinet is listed as company storage.”
“It contains family papers.”
I stepped across the threshold.
“Yesterday you said everything in this house belonged to the company.
Which story are you using today?”
Eleanor turned to Julian.
“Stop her.”
Julian remained beside the staircase.
“Mother, let them inspect the cabinet.”
Her face hardened.
“After everything I built for you?”
“You built a throne and never taught me how to stand without it.”
She pointed at Camille.
“This is her doing.
Your sister has always been jealous of you.”
Camille raised her phone.
“Keep talking.
I’m recording again.”
We entered the old study.
A portrait of Vanguard’s original design team hung above a locked cabinet, but my grandmother’s figure had been cut from the displayed photograph.
I held up the framed copy I had packed in my suitcase.
“This is the original.”
Arthur compared the two.
“Evelyn Sutton stood beside Eleanor’s husband.”
“She was hired help,” Eleanor said.
A voice came from the doorway.
“No, she wasn’t.”
Helen entered with an elderly man leaning on a cane.
Eleanor stared at him.
“Samuel Price.”
Samuel had served as Vanguard’s first company solicitor.
He touched the edge of my grandmother’s photograph.
“Evelyn drafted the first housing proposal at her kitchen table,” he said.
“When the Rhodes family ran out of money, she mortgaged her home to pay the staff.”
“That has nothing to do with current ownership,” Eleanor replied.
“It has everything to do with it.”
Helen unlocked the cabinet.
The shelves were empty.
Eleanor smiled.
“You came all this way for dust.”
I pushed the cabinet door wider.
Fresh scratches marked the wood beneath the bottom shelf.
“Arthur, help me lift this.”
We removed the shelf and found a narrow metal box underneath.
Eleanor moved toward it, but the court officer raised one hand.
“Do not interfere, Mrs.
Rhodes.”
The brass key opened the box.
Inside lay an encryption token, my grandmother’s original share certificate, and a black ledger.
Eleanor lunged for the ledger.
Camille stepped in front of her.
“No.”
“Move.”
“You took Leah’s name.
You took Grandmother Sutton’s name.
You don’t get to take this too.”
Eleanor turned to Julian.
“Your sister is destroying your inheritance.”
Julian looked at the ledger in my hands.
“What is in it?”
I opened to the final marked page.
Payments had been transferred from Vanguard’s employee pension reserve to a company called ER Consulting.
Arthur pointed to the initials.
“Eleanor Rhodes.”
“They are consulting fees,” Eleanor said.
Samuel shook his head.
“Directors cannot secretly pay themselves from protected employee funds.”
Julian took the ledger from me.
His face changed when he reached the authorization page.
“That’s my signature.”
I looked at him.
“Did you approve these transfers?”
“No.”
Eleanor reached for his arm.
“Julian, we should speak privately.”
He pulled away.
I placed the encryption token into my hard drive.
The archive opened, and hundreds of payment records filled the screen.
May you like
One transfer was scheduled for five o’clock.
It would empty the remaining pension reserve into an account bearing Eleanor’s name.
