Chapter 7 - The Safe Deposit Box
The box was held at First Crestview Bank.
It had not been opened since Daniel’s father died six years earlier.
Patricia still possessed one key.
The bank held the second.
Daniel expected old estate documents.
Instead, he found a history of Vanessa’s first fraud.
Checks.
Transfer records.
Emails.
A handwritten letter from his father.
Daniel sat inside the private viewing room while Rachel read it beside him.
Daniel,
If you ever need these records, then something has gone wrong that I hoped would never happen.
Vanessa took $84,000 from the Mercer Education Foundation.
I chose not to prosecute her because she was young and because your mother believed she could change.
I now believe my silence may have been a mistake.
Daniel stopped reading.
Rachel finished the letter.
His father had forced Vanessa to repay the money.
He had also removed her from financial control inside the company.
After his death, however, Daniel had unknowingly restored much of that access.
He had promoted her.
He had trusted her.
Rachel opened another folder.
“This explains motive.”
“Part of it.”
Daniel stared at the documents.
“She believed Dad stole half the company from her.”
“And she knew these records could destroy her credibility if anyone found them.”
Daniel remembered Patricia’s warning.
“Vanessa asked for the key.”
Rachel nodded.
“She may have been looking for these.”
One document was missing.
A page number jumped from fourteen to sixteen.
Daniel examined the binder.
“What was page fifteen?”
Rachel could not know.
Patricia could.
When Daniel called, she became silent.
“Mom.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Yes, you do.”
A long pause.
“It was a letter.”
“From Dad?”
“Yes.”
“To whom?”
“To Vanessa.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“What did it say?”
“He told her that if she ever stole from the company again, he had instructed the trustees to activate a morality clause.”
Daniel had never heard of it.
“What morality clause?”
“If a shareholder committed fraud against the company, her voting shares could be repurchased at a predetermined value.”
Daniel understood immediately.
Vanessa’s twenty-two percent stake could disappear.
And if the federal investigation proved she had stolen millions, she stood to lose far more than freedom.
She would lose her ownership.
“Where is the letter now?”
“I don’t know.”
Daniel stared at the empty page sleeve.
Vanessa had probably found it.
Rachel’s phone rang.
Agent Hale.
She answered.
Her expression changed.
“When?”
She listened.
Then looked at Daniel.
“What happened?”
Rachel ended the call.
“They found Alan Pierce.”
Daniel stood.
“Where?”
“At a private airfield thirty miles north.”
“Trying to leave?”
“Yes.”
“Did they arrest him?”
Rachel hesitated.
“No.”
Daniel frowned.
“Why not?”
“Because Alan wasn’t alone.”
She placed her phone on the table.
A security photograph filled the screen.
Alan stood beside a small charter plane.
Next to him was a man Daniel recognized instantly.
Martin Caldwell.
May you like
The chairman of Mercer Freight’s board.
*
