Chapter 3 - The Audit Trail
The heavy oak doors of Connor’s executive office on the fortieth floor of Pendleton Enterprises were locked from the inside. Outside, the glittering skyline of Cedar Rapids flickered under the neon glow of evening, but inside, the room was bathed in the pale, harsh light of multiple computer monitors.
Connor sat at his mahogany desk, his sleeves rolled up, his fingers flying across his keyboard. He wasn't relying on the police—not yet. In the corporate world, police moved at the speed of bureaucracy, and Connor knew that whoever had tried to bury his wife had powerful connections inside his own company.
The financial audit of Brenda’s purchasing division had begun three hours ago, conducted by an elite team of external forensic accountants he had hired under the guise of an annual review.
The door unlocked with a soft click, and his chief legal counsel, Marcus Vance, stepped inside, carrying a thick leather binder. Marcus looked exhausted, his tie loosened, a sheen of sweat glistening on his forehead.
“You found something,” Connor stated, not looking up from his screen.
“More than something, Connor,” Marcus said, laying the binder on the desk. “We pulled the private clinic records from Dr. Luke Albright’s facility, cross-referenced with Brenda’s corporate expense accounts and the recent shell-company transfers from Pendleton Enterprises’ R&D fund.”
Connor finally looked up, his eyes bloodshot and hard. “Talk.”
“Three weeks ago, right before Vivian discovered the discrepancies in the procurement ledger, $4.2 million was quietly funneled out of our biomedical subsidiary into an offshore account registered in the Cayman Islands,” Marcus explained, flipping open the binder to reveal a web of financial wire receipts. “The account manager listed on the corporate shell is none other than Brenda Pendleton.”
Connor’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle ticked in his cheek. “Embezzlement. She was bleeding the company dry, and Vivian found out.”
“It goes deeper than embezzlement,” Marcus said grimly, sliding a second document forward—a medical intake form bearing Dr. Albright’s signature. “Vivian didn't go to Albright’s clinic for a routine checkup. She went because she had scheduled a forensic audit meeting with an independent investigator to review the accounts. But she never made it to that meeting. According to the clinic logs, she was admitted through the emergency intake bay late at night—admitted by Dr. Albright himself, at the direct request of Brenda Pendleton.”
Connor’s chest heaved. “Brenda had her committed, drugged her with that neurotoxin, and declared her dead.”
“And she had help,” Marcus added quietly.
Connor’s gaze sharpened. “Whose help?”
Marcus hesitated, sliding a final piece of paper across the desk—a record of property ownership transfers and recent phone logs. “Your brother, Mason. Over the last six months, Mason’s personal accounts received three massive influxes of capital originating from the exact same Cayman shell company that Brenda controls. Furthermore, Mason was the one who signed off on the rushed funeral contract with Oakridge Memorial, specifically requesting a expedited burial within twenty-four hours of the supposed death certificate issuance.”
The room seemed to shrink. The brother he had raised, the brother he had trusted with the creative soul of his enterprise, had sold out Vivian’s life for a cut of embezzled cash.
“Where is Mason now?” Connor asked, his voice dropping into an arctic whisper.
“He’s downstairs in the conference room, waiting for you to sign the quarterly PR releases,” Marcus said.
Connor stood up slowly, smoothing the front of his shirt. He walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window, staring down at the distant ant-like traffic on the street below. He thought of Vivian lying in that ICU bed, fighting for every breath. He thought of Grace crying at the gravesite.
“Marcus,” Connor said without turning around. “Lock down the building’s server rooms. Freeze all personal assets linked to Mason and Brenda. And call the state attorney general’s office. Tell them I have a federal-level white-collar fraud and attempted homicide case ready to hand over on a silver platter.”
May you like
“And Brenda?” Marcus asked.
“Find her,” Connor replied coldly. “Because if my security team finds her before the police do, she’s going to wish she had stayed in that graveyard.”
