Chapter 7 - “THEY’LL BELIEVE ME”The email stayed in Malcolm’s briefcase for six hours before he showed Colette.
He wanted more than anger.
He wanted certainty.
Nathan met him at Sterling Development after most employees had gone home.
The accountant had spread printed transaction histories across a conference table.
“This is eighteen months?” Malcolm asked.
“Five years.”
Malcolm looked at the columns.
Former employees.
Reimbursements.
Expense classifications.
Some amounts small.
Some large.
“How much?”
“Questionable? I’m not ready to give you a final number.”
“Estimate.”
Nathan exhaled.
“Over a hundred thousand.”
Malcolm looked up.
“That much?”
“Potentially more.”
“Stolen?”
“I didn’t say stolen.”
“What would you call it?”
“I would call it spending routed through categories that made it difficult to notice.”
Nathan tapped several entries.
“Private purchases. Travel. Luxury services. Some transfers to companies I haven’t identified.”
“And former employees?”
“Used as payees or reimbursement references.”
“Why?”
Nathan shook his head.
“Possibly convenience. Possibly concealment.”
“Whose credentials?”
“Mostly Colette’s household management account.”
“Mostly?”
“There are authorizations under yours.”
“Which I didn’t make.”
“We need to prove that.”
Malcolm looked through the glass wall at the dark office outside.
“I met Denise.”
Nathan stopped.
“She says Colette framed her.”
“That’s serious.”
“She found expenses. Planned to tell me. Next day cash appeared in her locker.”
Nathan said nothing.
Malcolm handed him the email.
The accountant read it.
His mouth tightened.
“This doesn’t prove she planted cash.”
“No.”
“But it’s ugly.”
“Yes.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Everything you should have done if this were anybody else.”
Nathan looked at him.
“Forensic review?”
“Yes.”
“Outside counsel?”
“Not yet.”
“If there was unauthorized use of your credentials—”
“I know.”
Nathan nodded.
“I’ll bring in one person I trust.”
“No one connected to Colette.”
“Understood.”
Malcolm returned home at nine.
Colette sat in the living room drinking wine.
She did not look up.
“Where’s Blake?”
“Bed.”
Malcolm placed a copy of Denise’s email on the table.
Colette glanced at it.
“What is this?”
“You know.”
She read.
For a moment there was no reaction.
Then contempt.
“Denise kept that?”
“Yes.”
“Pathetic.”
“Why did you send it?”
“She was difficult.”
“She planned to tell me about charges.”
“According to her.”
“You fired her the next day.”
“She stole.”
“Did you put the money in her locker?”
Colette’s head snapped up.
“No.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
Malcolm watched her.
“You’re actually asking me that?”
“Yes.”
“After twenty-three years?”
“Especially after twenty-three years.”
She stood.
“You’ve lost your mind.”
“Maybe.”
“You’re letting employees rewrite our marriage.”
“Employees did not move money.”
“No money was stolen.”
“Then why hide it?”
“I didn’t.”
“Why use Denise’s name after she was gone?”
“I told you. Accounting errors.”
“Three former employees?”
Silence.
“Five years of errors?”
Her eyes sharpened.
“Nathan has no business showing you incomplete data.”
“Interesting.”
“What?”
“I didn’t tell you Nathan was involved.”
Colette froze.
Another mistake.
Small.
But Malcolm saw it.
“How did you know?”
She recovered quickly.
“Who else would you call?”
He studied her.
“What were you afraid Denise would tell me?”
“Nothing.”
“What were you afraid Rosa would tell me?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why tell Blake not to believe her?”
“I didn’t.”
“He says you did.”
“He’s ten.”
“He remembers.”
Colette picked up her wine.
“You are destroying this family over servants.”
Malcolm stared.
She drank.
He said quietly, “That sentence is exactly the problem.”
“Oh, spare me.”
“No.”
He stepped closer.
“You spent years teaching our son that people who work for us are less important. And now every time one of those people says something uncomfortable, you use their job as evidence that they don’t matter.”
Colette set down the glass.
“You want to make me the villain because you’re never here.”
“I already know what I did wrong.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
That stopped her.
“I left you in charge of this house because it was easier. I assumed money and politeness made me a good employer. I didn’t look.”
Colette’s mouth tightened.
“But my failure to look doesn’t make your behavior disappear.”
For the first time she seemed unsure how to attack him.
Malcolm picked up the email.
“Denise told me one thing I believe.”
“What?”
“She said you were counting on people believing you because this was your house.”
Colette smiled slowly.
Then said something so quiet Malcolm almost missed it.
“They did.”
He stared.
She realized what she had said.
But it was too late.
Three years earlier, when Denise accused Colette of framing her, Malcolm had believed his wife without speaking to Denise.
Five years earlier, when Carla disappeared, he had accepted the explanation Colette gave him.
Last week, if Rosa had complained about Colette, would he have believed Rosa?
He honestly did not know.
And that was exactly why Colette had been so confident.
“They’ll believe me.”
May you like
It had not merely been a threat to Denise.
It had been Colette’s operating principle.
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