Chapter 2 - The Paper Trail
Rowan’s eyes snapped from his sister’s face to mine. “What audit?”
My knees were still weak, but the sharp contraction in my abdomen had softened into a dull, manageable ache. I lifted my hand off his laptop, pointing toward the heavy mahogany desk tucked into the alcove beneath the grand staircase—the desk where Celeste had worked every morning since Rowan left for Europe.
“Three weeks ago,” I said, my voice steadying as the numbers took over my mind, “I noticed that the weekly grocery allowance for the main house was being cleared through an offshore vendor account in St. Thomas. I asked Celeste for the itemized receipts so I could balance the ledger for the quarterly tax filing. She told me the staff had lost them.”
Celeste took a step back, her back coming against the frame of the library door. “You had no authority to touch those files.”
“I’m an Associate Chartered Accountant, Celeste,” I said, looking up at Rowan. “I spent seven years reviewing fraud cases for Deloitte before I met you. When someone tells me fourteen thousand dollars of produce was bought from a shipping company registered to a post office box in the Virgin Islands, I don't look for receipts. I look at the routing headers.”
Rowan turned his head slowly toward his sister. “The St. Thomas account is the legacy fund Our father set up for the museum board.”
“It was,” I corrected him. “Until six months ago, when the signing authority was transferred to a secondary LLC called Frost & Armand Care Services.”
Celeste’s hand went to her throat, her fingers knotting into the pearls she wore. “That’s a lie. She made that entity herself. She used her maiden name—!”
“I didn't open it,” I said. “My maiden name is Frost, but the registration papers filed with the Georgia Secretary of State used my social security number with two digits transposed—the exact same typo that appeared on the health insurance forms Celeste filled out for me when I moved into this house.”
Rowan set his laptop down on the marble hall table. His movements were slow, deliberate, almost mechanical. He walked past Celeste, unbuttoning his rain-dampened suit coat and tossing it onto a chair, then picked up the thick brass paperweight resting on the desk.
He turned it over in his fingers once, twice, before setting it down with a sharp, heavy clack that made Celeste jump.
“Where did the hard copies go, Abby?” he asked.
“To Mr. Vance,” I replied.
Celeste gasped, a wet, sharp sound. “David Vance? The lead trustee?”
“He came by the house on Tuesday,” I said, looking Celeste dead in the eye. “While you were out at the country club telling everyone I was too sick to receive visitors. Lena let him in through the side garden gate.”
Lena nodded once from the service hall, her jaw set firm. “I brought him his tea in the morning room, Mr. Armand. Mrs. Armand gave him three blue folders with the bank stamps intact.”
Rowan looked at his sister. For four long seconds, he didn't say a word. The silence in the foyer was so dense that the sound of the rain beating against the high leaded-glass windows sounded like gravel hitting metal.
“You set her up,” Rowan said. It wasn't a question.
“Rowan, listen to me!” Celeste took two fast steps toward him, her hands coming out, palms up, her voice dropping into the desperate, pleading tone she used when they were teenagers trying to hide broken vases from their father. “She’s an outsider! She doesn't understand how this family operates! The trust was losing money because of the interest rate adjustments in London! I moved those funds into the logistics account to protect the estate from the tax reassessment! If the trustees saw those numbers in the general ledger, they would have frozen your operational allowance!”
“By putting eighty-six thousand dollars of fake medical charges under my name?” I asked, leaning forward on the bench. “While you refused to give me the key to the medicine cabinet so I could take my iron supplements?”
Rowan’s eyes flicked down to my arm again. The four purple marks left by Celeste’s nails were turning darker by the minute against my pale skin.
He stepped into Celeste’s space, his six-foot-two frame towering over her until she was forced to lean back against the library doorframe to keep her balance.
“Where are the keys to the station wagon?” he asked softly.
“Rowan—”
“Where are the keys?”
Celeste reached into the small leather pouch hanging from her belt and pulled out a heavy silver keyring with four brass keys attached. Her hand was shaking so badly the metal clicked together like small teeth.
Rowan took them from her fingers. He didn't snatch them; he simply pulled them free with a slow, heavy pressure that left Celeste’s hand hovering empty in the air.
He tossed the keys over his shoulder. Lena caught them in one hand with the practiced ease of someone who had spent twenty years handling the estate’s logistics.
“Lena,” Rowan said, his back still turned to his sister. “Take the station wagon down to the gate house. Tell the guards that Miss Armand’s security code is deactivated as of five minutes ago.”
Celeste’s eyes went wide. “You can’t do that! This is the family seat! I hold thirty percent of the voting shares in the management company!”
“You hold thirty percent of the non-voting trust assets,” Rowan said, turning around slowly. His face was completely devoid of emotion—no anger, no grief, just a cold, flat emptiness that was far worse. “Which means you have no right to enter the main house without the primary trustee's consent. And as of eighteen minutes ago, I am rescinding your residency status at Cedar Hill.”
“Rowan!” she shrieked, her poise vanishing completely as she reached for his forearm. “The trustee dinner is in three hours! David Vance will be here! The entire Atlanta historical board will be here! You can’t turn me out into the driveway like a servant!”
Rowan walked back to where I was sitting on the bench. He reached down, lifted my feet gently, and swung my legs onto the cushion, then took a soft wool throw from the back of the sofa and wrapped it carefully around my shoulders, tucking the edges beneath my chin.
May you like
He didn't look at his sister once while he did it.
“The dinner is canceled,” Rowan said, his thumb brushing a tear from my cheek. “And you have twenty minutes to pack one bag before Lena drives you to the hotel by the highway.”
