Chapter 4 - The Missing Money
By noon, the Lakeshore Grand had become the quietest hotel in Chicago.
Guests still arrived.
Suitcases still rolled across marble.
Champagne still appeared in the executive lounge.
But behind the polished doors, investigators were opening files.
Adrian finally agreed to let a doctor examine him in the penthouse suite.
The diagnosis was a mild concussion, six stitches, bruised ribs, and a direct order to rest.
He ignored the last part.
At 12:40, Margaret entered with a laptop.
“We found something.”
Adrian sat beside the window overlooking Lake Michigan.
“How bad?”
“Potentially seven figures.”
He looked up.
Margaret turned the screen.
Payroll reports filled it.
For fourteen months, money had been removed from employee checks through small deductions.
Twenty dollars.
Thirty-seven.
Fifty-two.
Never enough individually to trigger an immediate corporate audit.
Across hundreds of employees and several pay periods, however, the amount had grown.
“Current estimate is $684,000.”
Adrian stared at the number.
“From hourly employees?”
“Mostly.”
The anger that crossed his face was quiet.
That was Adrian's dangerous kind.
“Where did it go?”
“We don't know yet.”
A knock interrupted them.
Nia stood outside.
She had been offered a hotel room for the afternoon because her employment review wasn't complete and reporters had begun gathering outside after someone leaked news of Adrian's accident.
She looked uncomfortable in the expensive suite.
“You asked to see me?”
“Yes.”
Adrian pointed toward a chair.
Nia remained standing.
“I'd rather not.”
“Why?”
“Because yesterday you were my boss without me ever meeting you. Today I dragged you through a service entrance while you bled on my coat. This situation is weird enough.”
Adrian laughed.
His ribs immediately punished him.
Nia almost smiled.
Then she noticed the payroll figures.
Her expression changed.
“What is that?”
Adrian told her.
Nia slowly sat down after all.
“Six hundred eighty-four thousand?”
“So far.”
She stared toward the lake.
“Evelyn almost lost her apartment last summer.”
Adrian said nothing.
“She took extra shifts because she thought she'd messed up her taxes. Luis skipped his daughter's school trip. Maria in housekeeping started bringing rice from home because she couldn't afford lunch downstairs.”
Every example made the number on the screen uglier.
Adrian had built his company around luxury.
Guests paid nine hundred dollars a night for lake views while employees downstairs were losing grocery money.
“I should have known,” he said.
Nia looked at him.
“Were you processing payroll?”
“No.”
“Then you couldn't know everything.”
“My name is on the building.”
“That doesn't make you psychic.”
“No. It makes me responsible.”
Nia studied him.
That answer mattered more than he realized.
She had known managers who blamed everyone below them.
Adrian appeared determined to blame himself for something he hadn't personally done.
Margaret's phone rang.
She answered.
Her expression tightened.
“What?”
She stood.
“Send it immediately.”
Adrian looked at her.
Margaret ended the call.
“Security found the sedan.”
Nia's stomach dropped.
“From this morning?”
“Abandoned in a parking garage in River North.”
“Driver?”
“Gone.”
“Registered owner?”
“Shell company.”
Adrian stood too quickly and winced.
Nia automatically reached toward him.
He caught himself against the table.
Their eyes met.
For a strange second, neither moved.
Then Nia withdrew her hand.
“You're terrible at being injured.”
“I've had limited practice.”
“Maybe try listening to doctors.”
“I've had even less practice doing that.”
Margaret cleared her throat.
Neither acknowledged it.
Then she continued.
“The shell company made a payment three weeks ago to a consulting firm.”
“Whose?”
“We're checking.”
Another knock.
Daniel entered carrying a folder.
His face looked grim.
“Vanessa's gone.”
Adrian straightened.
“What do you mean, gone?”
“She left during the audit.”
“She surrendered her access card.”
“She had another one.”
Margaret cursed softly.
Daniel placed the folder on the table.
“And she accessed the accounting archive before leaving.”
Adrian opened it.
“Did she delete anything?”
“Tried to.”
“Tried?”
Daniel looked toward Nia.
“Someone made backups.”
Nia blinked.
“Who?”
“Evelyn.”
That surprised everyone.
Apparently Evelyn had spent months photographing suspicious payroll records because she was afraid employees were being cheated.
She had hidden the copies somewhere Vanessa would never think to search.
Inside the housekeeping lost-and-found archive.
By two o'clock, those photographs revealed something even stranger.
Vanessa wasn't acting alone.
Monthly payments had gone to a company called Northline Workforce Solutions.
It supposedly provided temporary labor.
No temporary employees could be found.
Yet the Lakeshore Grand had paid Northline nearly $1.3 million in eighteen months.
Margaret traced the corporate registration.
When she returned to Adrian's suite, she carried a single sheet of paper.
“You need to see the owner.”
Adrian took it.
His expression changed.
Nia noticed immediately.
“What?”
Adrian handed her the page.
Northline Workforce Solutions had been registered by a man named Richard Cole.
Nia looked up.
“Cole?”
Adrian stared at the Chicago skyline.
“My uncle.”
The room went silent.
Richard Cole wasn't merely family.
He was the man who had helped Adrian build Cole Meridian after Adrian's father died.
The man who had taught him business.
The man who still sat on the company's board.
And suddenly Vanessa's final words before disappearing sounded different.
You're making a mistake.
Adrian looked down at the corporate registration.
May you like
Maybe she hadn't been threatening him.
Maybe she had been warning him.
