Chapter 13 - The Recording|
The leather notebook contained a list of dates, account numbers, and names. Most of the entries were difficult to interpret without the original records, but one page had been marked with a red star.
Beside it, my mother had written:
Ask for the recording.
Margaret remembered that my mother had kept a small cassette recorder in her office. She had recorded meetings when she suspected people were lying, though Margaret didn't know what had become of the tapes.
Evelyn's investigator searched the storage facility where the scholarship fund's old files had been kept. Two days later, he found a sealed box containing invoices, meeting notes, and a small cassette in a plastic sleeve.
The label read:
September 14 — Account Review.
We gathered in Evelyn's conference room. A technician had converted the tape into a digital file, but we agreed not to distribute it until an independent expert verified that it had not been edited.
I sat beside Madison with my hands folded in my lap.
The recording began with the scrape of chairs and the clink of a glass.
Then my mother's voice emerged, younger but unmistakable.
“The transfers don't match the invoices. Someone has to explain where the money went.”
A man answered.
My stomach tightened when I recognized Vincent's father.
“The accounts are being reconciled.”
My mother replied, “That's what you said last month.”
A second man spoke. The recording quality was poor, but the expert identified the voice as Adrian's.
“You're making this more difficult than it needs to be.”
“People are waiting for those scholarships,” my mother said. “Families were promised assistance. If the money is gone, I need to know why.”
A chair scraped.
Then Thomas Vale's voice entered the conversation.
“You should stop asking questions.”
My mother sounded frightened, but she did not back down.
“Is that a threat?”
“No,” Thomas said. “It's advice.”
The tape continued for several minutes. Adrian discussed moving funds through companies that had no legitimate connection to the charity. Vincent's father objected, though it was unclear whether he knew the full extent of the scheme.
Then my mother's voice grew quieter.
“Vincent doesn't know about this, does he?”
No one answered immediately.
Finally, Adrian said, “Vincent knows what he needs to know.”
The recording ended with a sharp click.
I sat completely still.
Evelyn turned to the expert.
“Can you establish whether the tape is authentic?”
“The physical cassette appears consistent with the period, and the voices are likely genuine. We'll need additional comparison samples before making a formal determination.”
“What about the date?”
“The recording is consistent with the date written on the label, but the label alone isn't conclusive.”
I looked at the table.
“Does it prove Vincent was involved?”
“No,” Evelyn said. “It suggests his father may have known more than he admitted, and it places Adrian and Thomas in a discussion about questionable transfers. It doesn't establish that Vincent knew about the scheme.”
I was relieved—and angry that relief was necessary.
I had spent five years defending Vincent's character without asking enough questions. Now I was being asked to separate what he had done to me from what his family might have done to others.
They were not the same thing.
But both had consequences.
That afternoon, Vincent asked whether I would meet him briefly at a neutral office to review the recording. I agreed because Evelyn would be present.
He listened without speaking.
When the tape ended, he remained motionless.
“My father told me the scholarship fund had been closed because donations had fallen,” he said. “He said your mother wanted to step away.”
“Did you believe him?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever check?”
“No.”
He pressed his fingers against his forehead.
“I was so busy trying to take over the organization that I didn't look at the things I didn't want to see.”
“That doesn't make you guilty of what Adrian did.”
“No,” he said. “But it makes me responsible for what I allowed to happen.”
I watched him closely.
For once, he wasn't asking me to comfort him.
He was allowing the truth to be unpleasant.
Before we left, Evelyn received a message from the investigator. He had discovered that a second copy of the recording existed—and that someone had tried to access it through the old archive system that morning.
The access attempt had failed.
But the account used to make it belonged to an office inside Vincent's own organization.
May you like
The user name was Thomas Vale's.
And the time stamp showed that the attempt had occurred after Vincent had fired him.
