Chapter 3 - The Woman Who Signed for the Letter
Mason reached Dallas just after six that evening.
He did not warn Emma he was coming.
The headquarters of Vance Hospitality occupied nine floors of a glass tower in Uptown. Mason normally entered through the private garage.
That night he used the front doors.
He wanted people to see him.
Emma Ross was still in her office.
She stood when Mason entered.
“You drove here?”
“Yes.”
“You could’ve sent security.”
“I wanted the conversation.”
Emma studied him.
She had been his CFO for seven years.
Smart.
Disciplined.
Almost painfully organized.
She had helped Mason restructure the company after his father died.
He trusted her.
Which lately seemed to be becoming a dangerous habit.
Mason placed Joanne’s postal receipt on her desk.
Emma looked down.
Her face changed.
“Where did you get this?”
“Hospital.”
She didn’t touch it.
“Why is your signature on it?”
“It isn’t.”
“It says E. Ross.”
“There are other Rosses.”
“In my executive office?”
Emma stared at him.
“Look at the signature.”
He did.
She opened a drawer and removed a signed report.
The handwriting was clearly different.
Mason frowned.
“So somebody used your name.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you recognize the receipt.”
Emma sat down slowly.
“Yes.”
Mason remained standing.
“Start talking.”
Six years earlier, shortly before Mason’s father Charles Vance died of pancreatic cancer, Emma had discovered a group of unusual vendor companies tied to Vance Hospitality.
She mentioned them to Charles.
“He told me to leave them alone.”
“My father?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He said they were legacy obligations.”
“What does that mean?”
“He wouldn’t explain.”
Mason paced.
“And you accepted that?”
“He owned the company.”
“He was dying.”
“And still terrifying.”
That sounded accurate.
Emma continued.
“After you took over, the accounts became more active.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I prepared a report.”
“Where?”
“I gave it to your uncle.”
Mason stopped.
“Richard?”
Richard Vance.
His father’s younger brother.
Chairman of the company’s advisory board.
The man who had helped Mason through Charles’s death.
“He said he would brief you.”
“He never did.”
Emma looked sick.
“I assumed you chose not to act.”
The same lie Joanne had been told.
Mason didn’t care.
Mason didn’t want to know.
Mason had approved it.
Someone had been using his name as a shield.
“Why didn’t you come directly to me?”
Emma’s eyes flashed.
“Because at the time you were thirty-two, furious at the world, and working twenty-hour days trying to prove you were tougher than your father.”
Mason said nothing.
She wasn’t entirely wrong.
Emma continued more softly.
“And because Richard controlled the board.”
Mason sat.
“What else?”
“A month after my report, someone accessed the executive mailroom using my credentials.”
“The letter.”
“Maybe.”
“Who had access?”
“Richard. His executive assistant. Your father’s old secretary.”
“Name.”
“Celia Grant.”
Mason knew Celia.
She had worked for Charles Vance for twenty-eight years.
Retired two years ago.
“Where does she live?”
“Fredericksburg.”
Mason called his investigator.
“Find Celia Grant.”
While he waited, Emma brought up financial records.
“Look at this.”
Hill Country Artisan Dairy paid consulting fees to a company called Broadline Strategies.
Broadline transferred money to a private trust.
Beneficiary:
Richard Vance.
Mason stared at the screen.
His uncle.
His mentor.
His family.
“How much?”
“Over five years? At least six million.”
Mason laughed once.
Not because it was funny.
Because sometimes betrayal becomes so obvious that anger needs somewhere else to go.
His phone rang.
The investigator.
“Celia Grant is alive. Address confirmed.”
“Anything unusual?”
“Her house went into foreclosure eighteen months ago, then the mortgage was suddenly paid in full.”
“By who?”
“Broadline Strategies.”
Mason stood.
“Send me the address.”
Emma said, “You’re going tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Mason, be careful.”
He looked at her.
“For the last eight hours, everyone I trusted has told me somebody else was lying.”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“I hope so.”
Celia answered her door at 9:14 p.m.
The moment she saw Mason, she closed her eyes.
“You finally found it.”
“Found what?”
“The hotel.”
That was all the confirmation he needed.
They sat in a modest living room.
Celia’s hands shook.
“Your father started it.”
Mason’s anger flared.
“Started what?”
“The vendor network.”
“Why?”
“Not for himself.”
“Then for who?”
Celia looked at him.
“Richard.”
Mason felt his jaw tighten.
“Explain.”
Charles had discovered Richard gambling heavily and owing dangerous people money nearly ten years earlier.
Instead of allowing the scandal to become public, Charles created shell vendors to move money quietly.
At first, it was temporary.
Then Richard discovered how profitable the scheme could become.
“He expanded it,” Celia said.
“Without my father?”
“Eventually.”
“Did Charles know?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t he stop him?”
“Because Richard had something on him.”
“What?”
Celia looked away.
“Your mother.”
Mason’s stomach dropped.
“My mother died when I was seven.”
“No.”
He stared.
“What did you say?”
“She didn’t die.”
The room became silent.
Mason stood so quickly the chair hit the wall.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
He remembered the funeral.
Closed casket.
His father telling him there had been a highway accident.
Richard standing beside him.
Celia crying.
“My mother is alive?”
“She was when I last knew.”
“When?”
“Twenty-five years ago.”
His hands shook.
“Why would my father tell me she died?”
“Because she left.”
Mason’s anger turned to confusion.
“For who?”
“No one.”
“Then why?”
Celia began crying.
“Because she discovered your father and Richard were laundering money.”
Mason sat again.
“My mother knew?”
“She threatened to expose them.”
“So my father made me believe she was dead?”
Celia nodded.
“He sent her away.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Celia.”
“I swear.”
He believed she didn’t know.
Then she said something worse.
“Before she disappeared, your mother gave me a box.”
“What box?”
“Letters. Copies of financial records. Photographs.”
“Where is it?”
“I hid it.”
“Where?”
She looked toward the hallway.
Then they heard glass break.
Mason stood.
A second later, smoke rolled beneath the kitchen door.
Celia screamed.
“Fire!”
Mason grabbed her arm.
They ran.
Flames erupted through the rear hallway.
Someone had thrown an accelerant through the kitchen window.
Mason pulled Celia outside.
A dark SUV accelerated away from the curb.
He got only part of the plate.
Fire trucks arrived within minutes.
Celia stood barefoot on the lawn, wrapped in Mason’s jacket.
“The box,” Mason said.
She shook her head.
“It wasn’t in the house.”
“Where?”
Celia looked directly at him.
“I gave it to Joanne Parker.”
Mason froze.
“What?”
“Eight months ago.”
“Why Joanne?”
“Because she found the same fraud your mother found.”
Mason stared at the burning house.
Joanne hadn’t simply been a cook who stumbled into theft.
Someone from Mason’s father’s past had deliberately chosen her as the next keeper of evidence.
And whoever had tried to burn Celia’s house clearly knew it.
Mason called San Antonio.
Lily answered Joanne’s hospital phone.
“Mason?”
“Where’s your mother?”
“Asleep.”
“Listen carefully. Are there police outside the room?”
“No.”
His blood ran cold.
He had ordered security.
“Lily, lock the door.”
“Why?”
“Do it now.”
A knock sounded through the phone.
Lily whispered, “Someone’s here.”
“Don’t open it.”
The handle moved.
Lily’s breathing changed.
“Mason…”
May you like
“I’m coming.”
The hospital-room door began to open.
