Chapter 7 - THE WOMAN WHO NEVER SIGNED AWAY HER FUTURE
The next morning, Rebecca arrived at my hotel with two attorneys.
One specialized in corporate fraud.
The other handled intellectual-property disputes.
They placed the disputed ownership filing on the table.
I examined the signature.
It looked like mine.
Not approximately.
Not vaguely.
It was nearly perfect.
But there was one detail that made me certain.
I had changed the way I signed my name four years earlier.
The signature on the document was the older version.
Someone had copied it from a file I had signed before joining Caldwell.
“Can they transfer ownership with this?” I asked.
“Not legitimately,” Rebecca answered. “But they can create enough confusion to delay the acquisition and damage your credibility.”
The corporate attorney examined the notary stamp.
“There's another issue. The document lists a witness.”
“Who?”
He turned the page.
My stomach dropped.
Julian Caldwell.
I looked at Rebecca.
“He witnessed it?”
“Apparently.”
“That is impossible.”
“Can you prove it?”
I remembered the date.
Our wedding day.
The courthouse.
The rain.
The small dinner afterward.
Julian had been there.
But he had never witnessed a corporate transfer.
I opened my phone and searched my old photographs.
There was one picture from that day.
Julian and me standing outside the courthouse.
The time stamp was visible.
11:42 a.m.
The disputed document claimed to have been signed at 11:15 a.m.
I enlarged the photograph.
At 11:15, Julian and I had been inside the courthouse with the clerk.
And I remembered something else.
A woman had taken the photograph.
Rebecca.
She had been our attorney and our witness.
“Call the notary,” I said.
The attorney shook his head.
“We already tried. The office number is disconnected.”
“Find the actual notary.”
He nodded.
While they worked, I opened the old company records.
Northstar's parent company was called Dawson Strategic Holdings.
I had established it with my late father's assistance.
He had been a small-business attorney before retiring.
When he died, he left me a modest inheritance and a handwritten letter.
I hadn't opened that letter in years.
It was still in the blue folder.
I unfolded it.
Claire, never confuse being loved with being protected. The first is a feeling. The second is a decision. Make sure you always have the means to stand on your own.
I stared at the handwriting.
For the first time in days, my eyes filled.
My father had never met Julian's ambition with hostility.
He had simply wanted me to remain independent.
And I had.
Even when I didn't realize how important that would become.
By noon, the attorneys had discovered that the ownership filing had been submitted through an intermediary.
The intermediary was a corporate services company.
Its billing address belonged to a law firm representing Caldwell Creative.
The law firm had been instructed by someone using Julian's executive authorization.
“Can we establish that Julian personally submitted it?” I asked.
“Not yet,” Rebecca said.
Then my phone rang.
An unknown number.
I answered.
“Claire Dawson?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Martin Hale. I'm the finance director at Caldwell Creative.”
I sat upright.
“What do you need?”
“I need to meet you.”
“Why?”
“Because I've been asked to sign a statement confirming that you transferred Northstar's ownership voluntarily.”
My blood chilled.
“Did I?”
“No.”
“Then why would you sign it?”
“Because someone threatened to make me responsible for the missing money if I refused.”
I looked at Rebecca.
“Who?”
He lowered his voice.
“Sienna.”
“Does Julian know?”
“I don't know.”
“Can you prove what you're telling me?”
“Yes.”
A long pause followed.
“I have copies of the original payment instructions. The ones that show who created the vendor accounts.”
“Meet us with your attorney.”
“I can't come to your office.”
“Where?”
“Tomorrow. Nine o'clock. The coffee shop across from the courthouse.”
I agreed.
Before hanging up, Martin said something else.
“Claire?”
“Yes?”
“Don't trust the chairman either.”
I went still.
“Why?”
“Because the first payment was approved before Sienna joined the company.”
The call ended.
Rebecca looked at me.
“What did he say?”
I repeated the words.
She sat down slowly.
Richard Caldwell had presented himself as the person trying to expose the fraud.
May you like
But if Martin was telling the truth, someone had been stealing from the company long before Sienna arrived.
And the next morning, we might discover that the person who had invited me back into the building was connected to the very scheme he claimed to be investigating.
