Chapter 2 - Four Years of Lies
By noon, Mason had converted the Grand Crest’s executive conference room into an audit center.
Corporate accountants joined by video from Dallas. Purchase orders were scanned. Vendor contracts were pulled. Kitchen storage was photographed. Mason ordered employees not to destroy a single document, delete a single message, or remove so much as a receipt from the property.
Jeffrey Sloan objected first.
“This is excessive.”
Mason sat at the head of the table.
“Then it should be easy to prove you did nothing wrong.”
Jeffrey folded his arms.
“I’ve managed this hotel for twelve years.”
“And that makes you incapable of stealing?”
Jeffrey’s face hardened.
“You should be careful making accusations.”
Mason almost smiled.
“That sounded suspiciously like advice.”
Brandon sat beside him, silent.
Lily had been moved to Mason’s private suite with lunch, a hotel employee Mason personally trusted, and permission to call her grandmother.
Mason had also asked his assistant to locate Joanne Parker at the hospital.
He wanted to hear her story himself.
At 1:17 p.m., chief financial officer Emma Ross called.
“We found something.”
“How bad?”
“Potentially very bad.”
A spreadsheet appeared on the conference-room screen.
Emma highlighted a vendor.
Hill Country Artisan Dairy.
“Grand Crest paid them approximately $1.4 million over the last four years.”
Mason frowned.
“For dairy?”
“Supposedly.”
“Is that high?”
“Absurdly.”
Jeffrey interrupted.
“Luxury hotels require premium ingredients.”
Emma ignored him.
“The problem isn’t just the amount. Hill Country Artisan Dairy doesn’t appear to exist.”
Silence.
Mason leaned forward.
“What?”
“The tax number belongs to a dissolved landscaping company.”
Brandon suddenly looked at Jeffrey.
That reaction mattered.
Mason saw it.
“So who receives the money?”
“We’re tracing that.”
Mason pointed at Brandon.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“You looked at Jeffrey.”
“Because procurement is management’s responsibility.”
Jeffrey snapped, “Don’t start.”
Mason slowly leaned back.
Interesting.
Two men who had been united thirty minutes earlier were beginning to separate.
Pressure did that.
Emma continued.
“There’s another vendor. Lone Star Premium Meats. About nine hundred thousand over three years.”
“Real?”
“A mailbox.”
Mason’s expression hardened.
“And yet the hotel received meat.”
“Yes. From a lower-cost distributor.”
“So somebody buys cheap product, creates expensive invoices, and pockets the difference.”
“That’s what it looks like.”
Mason turned toward Jeffrey.
“Still excessive?”
Jeffrey said nothing.
At 2:04, hospital records confirmed Joanne Parker had been admitted after an ischemic stroke.
Mason drove there himself.
Lily came with him.
“You don’t have to,” he told her.
“She’s my mom.”
“I know.”
“She’ll be scared if some millionaire walks into her room.”
Mason glanced at her.
“You say millionaire like it’s a medical condition.”
For the first time, Lily smiled.
“It kind of is.”
He laughed.
Joanne Parker looked younger than Mason expected.
Forty-one.
Thin.
Dark hair cut to her shoulders.
One side of her face remained slightly weak from the stroke, and her speech was slower than normal.
When Lily entered, Joanne’s eyes lit up.
“Hey, baby.”
Lily hugged her carefully.
“I brought somebody.”
Joanne saw Mason.
Her expression changed immediately.
“No.”
Mason stopped.
“Ms. Parker—”
“No.”
Her voice was weak but firm.
“I wrote you.”
“I know.”
“You ignored me.”
“I never received the letter.”
She stared at him.
“Brandon said you did.”
“He lied.”
Joanne looked toward Lily.
Mason pulled up a chair.
“I need you to tell me everything.”
She hesitated.
“You’ll protect her?”
He knew exactly who she meant.
“Yes.”
“From Brandon?”
“From everybody.”
That was apparently enough.
Joanne began.
She had been hired as a prep cook four years earlier.
Within a year, she noticed ingredients on invoices didn’t match ingredients arriving in the kitchen.
Premium olive oil invoices.
Industrial blend in storage.
Imported cheese invoices.
Cheap domestic products on plates.
Fresh gulf shrimp invoices.
Frozen imports being served.
She initially assumed inventory errors.
Then she noticed Brandon signing receiving forms for shipments that never arrived.
“I asked him,” Joanne said slowly.
“What happened?”
“He told me to mind my station.”
“Then?”
“I started taking pictures.”
Lily touched her mother’s hand.
Joanne continued.
“I gave them to Jeffrey.”
Mason stared.
“The general manager?”
“Yes.”
“He said he would investigate.”
“Did he?”
Joanne laughed bitterly.
“A week later, I was called into his office.”
She had been accused of stealing food from the hotel.
Boxes of premium ingredients had supposedly been found in her car.
“Were they yours?”
“No.”
“Did you see who put them there?”
“No.”
“But the parking garage camera would have.”
Joanne looked at him.
“They said the camera wasn’t working.”
Of course.
“Then you wrote me.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Certified mail.”
Mason stiffened.
“Certified?”
“I still have the receipt.”
She pointed toward Lily’s backpack.
Lily opened it.
Inside a plastic folder were old documents.
Bills.
Hospital papers.
Employment correspondence.
And a faded postal receipt.
Mason read the tracking number.
Someone at Vance Hospitality had signed for Joanne’s letter.
Not him.
The signature said:
E. Ross.
Mason stared.
Emma Ross.
His CFO.
One of the people currently helping investigate the fraud.
Joanne noticed his expression.
“What?”
Mason folded the receipt slowly.
“Nothing yet.”
But it was something.
Possibly everything.
His phone rang.
Emma.
He stared at the screen before answering.
“Mason, we traced Hill Country Artisan Dairy.”
“To who?”
Silence.
Then:
“You’re not going to like this.”
“Try me.”
“The bank account was opened by a holding company.”
“Owned by?”
Another pause.
“Your late father.”
Mason stood.
“My father died six years ago.”
“I know.”
“Then who controls the account now?”
Emma hesitated.
“We’re still working on that.”
Mason looked at Joanne’s certified-mail receipt.
Emma Ross’s signature.
His father’s holding company.
A stolen letter he never received.
The fraud was no longer limited to one hotel.
It reached into his corporate headquarters.
Possibly into his own family.
Mason’s voice went cold.
“Emma.”
“Yes?”
“Where are you right now?”
“At the Dallas office.”
“Don’t leave.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m coming.”
When Mason ended the call, Joanne whispered, “What did you find?”
He looked at Lily.
Then Joanne.
“Someone didn’t just silence you.”
May you like
His jaw tightened.
“They built an entire system to make sure people like you could never reach me.”
