Chapter 2: The Envelope With His Name On It
Mason didn't raise his voice.
He didn't need to.
"Brandon.
Sit down."
The chef hesitated.
Then he sat.
Mason opened his phone and pulled up the hotel's supplier records going back four years.
He placed it on the table where everyone could see.
"Walk me through every dairy contract since 2020."
Brandon's jaw tightened.
"I'd need time to—"
"You have right now."
The room went still.
The manager stood near the wall, not moving.
The security guard had quietly disappeared.
Then Lily spoke.
"My mom kept copies."
Mason looked at her.
"Copies of what?"
"Everything.
The invoices.
The delivery receipts.
The photos she took in this same storage room." Lily unzipped her backpack slowly.
"She said if anything ever happened to her, I should find the real owner."
She pulled out a folded envelope.
Mason's name was written on the front.
In handwriting he didn't recognize.
He opened it.
Inside were six pages.
Dates.
Supplier names.
Amounts charged versus amounts actually delivered.
And at the bottom of the last page, one sentence underlined twice:
*They told me Mr.
Vance approved this.
I don't believe that.
I think he doesn't know.*
Brandon stood up so fast his chair scraped the floor.
"That woman had no right—"
"Sit.
Down."
Brandon sat.
Mason stared at the pages.
Joanne Parker had documented everything.
And someone had made sure he never saw a single word of it.
He looked at Lily.
"How long has your mother been in the hospital?"
"Six weeks," she whispered.
Six weeks.
The same month the supplier invoices had suddenly spiked again.
His hands went still on the table.
Someone had known Joanne was gone.
And they had started again the moment she couldn't stop them.
---
What Mason found inside those six pages exposed something far worse than missing money.
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