Chapter 3 - THE PROJECT WITH MY NAME ON IT
By noon, Jared's company access had been disabled.
By 12:07, he had an attorney.
By 12:20, he refused to answer another question.
And by 12:45, I learned that someone had been using my client portfolio to hide almost three hundred thousand dollars in expenses.
I sat across from Evelyn in a smaller conference room.
Our general counsel, Daniel Ruiz, had his laptop open.
Naomi from internal audit joined by video.
Kiera was in another room with HR.
Jared had left with counsel.
Nobody trusted anyone.
Including me.
Daniel rotated the laptop.
“Bennett-Mercer Integration Project.”
The code appeared at the top.
BMI-4427.
I stared.
“I've never seen it.”
“We believe you.”
“Why?”
“Because you don't have access permissions.”
That stopped me.
“What?”
“The project is restricted.”
“To whom?”
“Jared. Finance director Paul Kinsey. And two administrators.”
“Why would a project with my name be hidden from me?”
“That is what we're determining.”
Evelyn folded her arms.
“Show her the charges.”
Hotel suites.
Consulting invoices.
Transportation.
Research vendors.
Apartment rent.
Luxury meals.
Technology purchases.
One invoice for $38,000 from a company called Parker Strategic Solutions.
I stared.
“Parker?”
Daniel nodded.
“Kiera?”
“We don't know.”
I thought about her age.
Twenty-three.
“Does she own a consulting company?”
“Registered nine months ago.”
Three months before she supposedly met Jared at the conference.
My skin prickled.
“Who registered it?”
“Her father.”
“Who is he?”
Daniel clicked.
“Mitchell Parker.”
Evelyn went still.
I noticed.
“You know him.”
She didn't answer immediately.
“Evelyn.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Former executive at the firm.”
I stared.
“What?”
“Before your time.”
“What happened?”
“He was fired.”
“For?”
Evelyn looked at Daniel.
He answered.
“Expense fraud.”
My stomach dropped.
“How much?”
“About $1.2 million.”
“When?”
“Twelve years ago.”
“Was he prosecuted?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Settlement.”
I looked at Evelyn.
“You let him walk?”
Her jaw tightened.
“The partners at the time wanted discretion.”
There was that word.
Discretion.
Corporate language for burying something expensive.
“And now his daughter works here.”
“Yes.”
“Under Jared.”
“Yes.”
“Who hired her?”
Silence.
Evelyn answered.
“Jared.”
The pieces moved.
Not enough to form a picture.
But enough to frighten me.
“Did Jared know who her father was?”
“We're checking.”
“He did.”
I don't know why I was certain.
Maybe because too many coincidences stop being coincidences.
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
I ignored it.
Again.
Then a message.
Please talk to me without Jared. —Kiera
I showed Daniel.
He looked at Evelyn.
She nodded.
“HR present.”
“No.”
Both looked at me.
“If she thinks HR is interrogating her, she won't talk.”
Daniel frowned.
“We need to protect the firm.”
“I need to understand why a shell project with my name paid her father's company.”
Evelyn considered.
“Conference room. Door open. Daniel nearby.”
“Fine.”
Kiera arrived ten minutes later.
She looked twenty-three now.
Not polished.
Not ambitious.
Young.
Mascara gone.
Hands shaking.
She sat.
“I didn't know about the project code.”
I said nothing.
“I swear.”
“Tell me about your father.”
Her face changed.
“Who told you?”
“So you knew.”
“Yes.”
“That he worked here?”
“Yes.”
“That he was fired for fraud?”
Tears filled her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Did Jared know?”
She looked down.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He contacted my father.”
I froze.
“When?”
“Last year.”
Before Kiera.
Before the affair.
“Why?”
“I don't know everything.”
“Tell me what you do know.”
She inhaled.
“My dad kept records.”
“Of what?”
“What happened when he was fired.”
“Expense fraud?”
“He says he wasn't the only one.”
Of course.
“He says partners were using fake vendors.”
“Which partners?”
“I don't know.”
“Did Jared?”
“No. He wasn't senior enough then.”
“Why did Jared contact him?”
“Because he found something in archived financial records.”
My pulse changed.
“What?”
“A vendor connection.”
“To whom?”
Kiera hesitated.
“Your client accounts.”
There it was again.
“My accounts didn't exist twelve years ago.”
“I know.”
“So explain.”
“Some vendor IDs were reused.”
I stared.
She continued.
“Old shell companies.”
“For what?”
“Moving money.”
Evelyn appeared in the doorway.
She had been listening.
Kiera saw her.
Fear crossed her face.
Evelyn entered.
“Keep going.”
Kiera swallowed.
“My father told Jared the system was never completely shut down.”
Daniel stepped closer.
“What system?”
“Fake consulting invoices.”
“How do you know?”
“Because my father built part of it.”
Silence.
Evelyn sat.
“Why would he tell Jared?”
Kiera's mouth trembled.
“Because Jared offered him money.”
“How much?”
“I don't know.”
“Through Parker Strategic?”
“Yes.”
My stomach turned.
The $38,000 invoice.
Maybe one of several.
“Why involve you?”
I asked.
Kiera cried.
“He said I could get a real career.”
“Your father?”
“Jared.”
There was something in her voice.
Hope turned rotten.
“He said my father's reputation shouldn't ruin my future.”
“And sleeping with you was part of the career plan?”
Her face crumpled.
I immediately regretted the cruelty.
Not because she was innocent.
She wasn't.
But because Jared had trained both of us to direct anger sideways.
“I shouldn't have said that.”
She wiped her face.
“No. I slept with your fiancé.”
“Yes.”
“I knew you existed.”
“Yes.”
“I knew the wedding was coming.”
“Yes.”
“I kept doing it.”
“Yes.”
We sat with that.
No excuses.
Then:
“But I didn't know he was using you.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Neither did I.”
Kiera looked at Evelyn.
“He told me Annalise would leave after the wedding.”
“Why?”
“Because of the money.”
My body went cold.
“What money?”
“He said once they combined finances, she'd be protected.”
Protected.
“From what?”
“I don't know.”
“Kiera.”
“I swear.”
She thought.
“He kept saying after the wedding it wouldn't matter.”
“What wouldn't matter?”
“The audit.”
Evelyn stood.
“What audit?”
Kiera flinched.
“I don't know.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I heard him on the phone.”
“With whom?”
“My father.”
“When?”
“Last week.”
“What did he say?”
Kiera closed her eyes.
“Once we're married, spousal privilege buys time.”
Nobody moved.
My blood became ice.
Spousal privilege.
Not romance.
Not family.
Legal strategy.
The wedding was eleven weeks away.
Jared wasn't counting down to vows.
He was counting down to protection.
Daniel spoke carefully.
“Spousal privilege does not work the way Jared seems to think.”
“I know.”
I had watched enough legal dramas to know that much.
“But he thought it did.”
“Yes.”
Evelyn looked at me.
“Annalise, did Jared ever ask you to sign company documents outside normal process?”
My mind raced.
Then stopped.
Three weeks earlier.
He had brought papers home.
Said they were routine vendor approvals.
I had refused.
Because I never signed work documents at home.
His reaction had been strange.
Not angry.
Disappointed.
“What?”
Daniel asked.
I told them.
“What documents?”
“I don't know.”
“Did you keep copies?”
“No.”
“Email?”
“He printed them.”
Evelyn swore.
I had never heard her swear.
Daniel started typing.
“What date?”
I gave it.
He searched.
Then:
“There.”
An email from Jared.
Subject:
Home signatures
Attachment removed.
Recipient:
Paul Kinsey.
Message:
A wouldn't sign. We'll need another route.
My skin prickled.
Another route.
“What route?”
Daniel searched.
Five minutes.
Ten.
Then he found an approval record.
My name.
My employee ID.
My digital signature.
Except I had never approved it.
The document authorized $640,000 in vendor payments across four accounts.
My accounts.
My name.
My signature.
Forged.
I stood so quickly the chair rolled backward.
“No.”
Evelyn looked sick.
Daniel whispered:
“Jesus.”
Kiera covered her mouth.
I stared at the screen.
The approval timestamp was 11:42 p.m.
A Tuesday.
I knew exactly where I had been.
At dinner with Jared's mother.
My laptop had been at home.
With Jared.
My fiancé hadn't merely cheated.
He hadn't merely planned to steal my account.
He had been building a financial crime around my identity.
And then he had scheduled a wedding.
Suddenly the comment made perfect sense.
She'll be easier to manage once finances are combined.
Not emotionally.
Legally.
Financially.
If the fraud surfaced after marriage, Jared could blur everything.
Shared accounts.
Shared property.
Shared devices.
Shared access.
And if I panicked?
He could tell investigators I knew.
Maybe even produce documents with my signature.
I sat again.
My legs had stopped working.
Evelyn came around the table.
“Annalise.”
I looked at her.
“I almost married him.”
“I know.”
“In eleven weeks.”
“I know.”
I started laughing.
Then crying.
“I left him over a plane seat.”
Kiera cried too.
Evelyn squeezed my shoulder.
“No.”
I looked up.
“You left because something finally showed you who he was.”
Daniel's phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
Then his face changed.
“What?”
He looked at Evelyn.
“Security went to Jared's office.”
“And?”
“It's empty.”
“What do you mean empty?”
“Laptop gone. Files gone. Desk drawers cleared.”
My heart pounded.
“When?”
“They're checking cameras.”
Daniel listened again.
Then:
“Yesterday.”
I froze.
Yesterday.
While I was racing back through the Atlanta airport.
While I thought Jared was boarding a plane for a client meeting.
He had already cleared his office.
This wasn't damage control after I walked off the plane.
He had planned something before the trip.
The question was what.
Then Kiera whispered:
“The storage unit.”
Everyone turned.
Evelyn said:
“What storage unit?”
Kiera looked terrified.
“Jared rented one outside Atlanta.”
“When?”
“Two months ago.”
“What is in it?”
“I don't know.”
“Who has access?”
Kiera swallowed.
“My father.”
And just like that, the affair stopped being the center of the story.
May you like
Because my cheating fiancé, his twenty-three-year-old intern, her disgraced father, and nearly a million dollars in forged approvals were now connected to a storage unit nobody at the firm knew existed.
And whatever Jared had hidden there, he had started moving it before I ever stepped onto that plane.
