Chapter 8 - Twelve Days Later
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I saw Evan again twelve days later.
Not at our home.
Not at the hospital.
And certainly not on his own terms.
We met in the executive glass conference room on the tenth floor of Mercer Logistics headquarters—the very building I owned through Crown Peak Holdings.
I arrived precisely at two o'clock in the afternoon. I was on crutches, wearing an elegant cream-colored wool suit, with a lightweight, state-of-the-art medical brace protecting my left leg. James walked beside me, carrying two heavy leather briefcases.
Sitting across the long mahogany conference table were Evan, Richard, and Diane.
The twelve days had not been kind to them.
Their smug, country-club arrogance had completely vanished. Evan looked gaunt, dark circles carved deep beneath his sunken eyes, his hair unstyled. Richard sat slouched in his chair, ten pounds lighter, his hands trembling slightly on the table. Diane sat in the corner, staring blankly at the glass wall, looking aged by a decade.
Seated behind them were three high-priced criminal defense attorneys, their expressions grim as they flipped through massive stacks of legal discovery files.
The forensic audit James had launched twelve days ago had uncovered a financial horror show far worse than I had originally anticipated.
The $3.8 million transferred to Richard’s shell companies was just the tip of the iceberg.
Over six years, Diane had submitted over six hundred thousand dollars in fraudulent 'consulting invoices' for work that was never performed. Evan had routinely approved massive wire transfers to offshore accounts, attempting to disguise them as international fleet maintenance and fuel surcharge expenses.
Worse still for their defense, federal investigators had successfully recovered deleted text messages and audio recordings from Evan’s phone.
The messages detailed a three-month plan between Evan, his mother, and his father to isolate me, force me out of the company, and ensure that 'the Claire problem' was permanently eliminated before our annual shareholder audit.
As I swung myself carefully into the head chair at the end of the table, setting my crutches against the wall, Evan pushed himself up from his seat.
“Claire... please,” Evan choked out, his voice cracking with desperation.
May you like
I settled into my chair, resting my hands flat on the polished mahogany surface.
“Sit down, Evan.”
