Chapter 3 - Eleven Companies
By the end of the week, the number was seventeen million dollars.
Seventeen million in consulting contracts, inflated vendor invoices, nonexistent logistics services, suspicious reimbursements, and payments routed through companies whose ownership structures seemed deliberately confusing.
Arthur brought the preliminary report to my apartment himself.
I read every page.
Richard Morrison had been with Halcyon for twenty-three years. My father had promoted him twice. I had approved his appointment as regional president five years earlier because his numbers appeared excellent.
Now I wondered how many of those numbers had been manufactured.
Brendan's signatures appeared on four authorizations.
Jessica’s appeared on seven.
That afternoon, Brendan called repeatedly.
I ignored him until Arthur told me investigators needed his voluntary cooperation.
We met in a conference room at Halcyon headquarters.
Brendan entered without his usual tailored confidence. No assistant. No executive badge. No expensive watch.
Just a frightened man carrying a legal pad.
He looked at me across the table.
“You used to come here?”
“Frequently.”
“I never saw you.”
“That was intentional.”
He shook his head.
“All those times I told you about my meetings…”
“I knew most of the people in them.”
He laughed once, painfully.
“God.”
Arthur entered with outside counsel.
The interview lasted three hours.
Brendan admitted he had approved companies Richard recommended without completing normal diligence. He claimed Jessica often brought the documents directly to him and assured him Richard had cleared everything.
Then Arthur produced an email.
Brendan read it.
His face collapsed.
Jessica had written to Richard eighteen months earlier:
B will sign. He never reads past the executive summary when he thinks you already approved it.
Brendan stared at those words for nearly a minute.
“She played me.”
I couldn't help myself.
“You cheated on your pregnant wife with her, Brendan. Let's not rewrite you as the innocent victim.”
He closed his eyes.
“You're right.”
It was the first time I had ever heard him say those words without qualification.
Investigators found something worse two days later.
A voice recording.
Richard had secretly recorded several business conversations, apparently as insurance against partners.
In one, Jessica laughed about Brendan.
“He thinks he's going to run the company someday.”
Richard answered, “Let him think whatever keeps him useful.”
Brendan listened beside Arthur and me.
His face hardened.
Then Jessica’s voice continued.
“And Evelyn?”
Richard paused.
“She’s more dangerous than he understands.”
Jessica laughed.
“Her? Brendan says she spends half the day in yoga pants.”
Richard's reply changed the room.
“Brendan is an idiot.”
I almost smiled.
Then Richard added:
“Evelyn Mercer owns the board votes that matter.”
Brendan turned toward me.
His father had known while he had not.
That revelation shattered something inside him.
He stood abruptly.
“I need air.”
Arthur blocked the door.
“Sit down.”
“Move.”
“Brendan.”
“I said move!”
He shoved Arthur’s shoulder.
I stood.
“Stop.”
Brendan froze.
His fists were clenched.
Arthur didn't move.
“Do not turn humiliation into another bad decision,” I said.
Brendan's breathing slowed.
He sat.
“Sorry.”
Arthur straightened his jacket.
“Accepted.”
That evening, Jessica came to my apartment.
I refused to let her inside.
She stood in the hallway wearing sunglasses although it was raining.
“Richard set me up.”
“Tell your attorney.”
“He's going to blame everything on me.”
“Then cooperate with investigators.”
“You don't understand.”
“I understand seventeen million dollars.”
Her face tightened.
“It's more.”
I stared at her.
“How much more?”
“I don't know.”
“Then why say that?”
“Because Richard kept another ledger.”
“Where?”
Jessica glanced down the hallway.
“He called it Blackbird.”
I said nothing.
“He said nobody could ever find it.”
“Where is it?”
“I don't know.”
“Convenient.”
Jessica suddenly grabbed my wrist.
“Listen to me.”
I jerked free.
“Never touch me again.”
She stepped back.
“I can help you.”
“You had an affair with my husband.”
“I know.”
“You participated in humiliating me.”
Her eyes dropped.
“I know.”
“You laughed while Diane poured filthy water over a pregnant woman.”
“I know.”
“And now you want protection.”
“I want to stay out of prison.”
At least that was truthful.
I told her to contact Arthur.
Then I closed the door.
The following morning, investigators searched Richard's office under company protocols and with appropriate legal authority.
Behind a removable panel inside a locked cabinet, they found an encrypted drive.
The label contained one word.
BLACKBIRD.
The encryption took fourteen hours to break.
Arthur called me at 2:06 a.m.
“It's not seventeen million.”
I sat upright.
“How much?”
“Potentially forty-three.”
I couldn't speak.
“And Evelyn?”
“Yes?”
“Some payments predate your father's death.”
My blood went cold.
“How far?”
“Seven years.”
My father had died six years earlier.
That meant Richard had been stealing while my father was alive.
I remembered Dad defending him.
“Richard's rough around the edges,” he once told me, “but loyal.”
My hands began shaking.
Arthur continued.
“There’s one more thing.”
“What?”
“A payment three weeks before your father's fatal car accident.”
Silence.
“To whom?”
“A company that no longer exists.”
“What did it do?”
“We're investigating.”
I stared into the darkness.
My father had died when his SUV left a wet road outside Annapolis.
Police ruled it an accident.
For six years, I had accepted that.
Now a secret ledger created by a man who had stolen from him contained a suspicious payment weeks before his death.
For the first time since the bucket of water hit me, I felt genuine fear.
May you like
This was no longer about corporate theft.
And somewhere in Milwaukee, Richard Morrison knew we had found Blackbird.
