Chapter 3 - THE COMPANY CARD
By ten that morning, I was sitting across from our corporate attorney, Rebecca Sloan.
Rebecca had worked with me for seventeen years.
She was not a woman who dramatized problems.
So when she slid a folder across her desk and said, “This is bad,” I listened.
Inside were eight months of Michael’s executive expenses.
Luxury hotels.
Private dining rooms.
Jewelry purchases.
A weeklong resort charge in Cabo.
Nearly eleven thousand dollars at a designer boutique.
I stared at the pages.
“What exactly am I looking at?”
“Expenses Michael classified as client development.”
“Were they?”
“No.”
Rebecca opened another file.
“Our audit team started reviewing his account after you called this morning.”
She pointed toward several transactions.
“The Cabo trip was during a week when he reported being in Chicago negotiating the Danner contract.”
I remembered it.
Michael had called me from what he claimed was a hotel lobby.
He said negotiations were exhausting.
I had told him I was proud of him.
“Who was in Cabo?”
“We don’t know yet.”
I did.
Or at least I had a strong suspicion.
“Cassandra.”
Rebecca nodded.
“Probably.”
Another charge caught my attention.
A forty-eight-thousand-dollar deposit to Kensington Events.
The wedding planner.
I looked up.
“Tell me he didn’t.”
Rebecca’s expression answered first.
“It appears Michael charged part of the wedding to the company.”
I leaned back.
Something inside me went strangely quiet.
This was no longer a spoiled son accepting too much help.
This was theft.
“Total?”
“So far, one hundred eighty-seven thousand dollars in questionable expenses.”
“So far?”
“We have three years to examine.”
I looked through the glass wall of her office toward the city below.
Michael had always told me he wanted to earn his place.
I had believed him because fathers sometimes hear what they hope their sons mean instead of what they actually say.
“Freeze his corporate card.”
“Already done.”
“Vehicle?”
“Company property.”
“Recover it.”
Rebecca studied me.
“Robert, once we start this, we need to treat him like any other executive.”
“That’s exactly what I want.”
She hesitated.
“He’s your son.”
“No.”
I closed the folder.
“In this room, he’s an employee suspected of abusing company funds.”
That afternoon, Human Resources suspended Michael pending investigation.
His email access disappeared at 2:05.
His corporate card stopped working at 2:11.
At 2:46, the tracking system showed his SUV entering a gas station.
At 2:51, my phone rang.
I answered.
“You froze my card?”
Michael sounded stunned.
“Yes.”
“My company email is locked.”
“Yes.”
“What are you doing?”
“My job.”
“This is because of Mom?”
I said nothing.
His voice sharpened.
“Cassandra was right.”
“About what?”
“She said you’d use money to control us.”
I actually smiled.
“No, Michael.”
I leaned back in my chair.
“I used money to support you.”
“There’s a difference.”
“You’re insane.”
“Return the company vehicle by five.”
“You gave me that car.”
“No.”
“The company leased it.”
“You can’t do this.”
“I already did.”
Then he said something interesting.
“If you cut me off, you’re going to regret what comes out.”
I stopped breathing for half a second.
“What does that mean?”
Michael went silent.
“Michael?”
He disconnected.
I stared at my phone.
Rebecca had heard everything through the speaker.
She leaned forward.
“That sounded like a threat.”
“Yes.”
But it sounded like something else too.
Fear.
At 4:37, Michael’s SUV appeared in the company garage.
He left the keys with security.
He didn’t come upstairs.
But inside the center console, security found a sealed envelope addressed to me.
There were only six words written across the front.
May you like
ASK MOM WHAT HAPPENED IN 1998.
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