Chapter 4 - The Second Phone
Police investigators took custody of the hidden phone the next morning.
Andre was advised not to return to the family home alone while evidence was being preserved.
His company hired an outside forensic accounting firm.
By afternoon, Andre learned the first devastating fact.
Cole Facility Solutions had received $186,420.
Three other questionable vendors had received another $214,000.
A fifth had received $37,500.
Some invoices corresponded to real projects but were inflated.
Others described work that never occurred.
Andre's company was not bankrupt.
But the scheme had been slowly bleeding it.
“What about the email approving Simone's access?” Andre asked.
The forensic consultant turned a laptop toward him.
The message had come from Andre's account.
It said:
Please give Simone temporary AP support permissions. I'm traveling too much to oversee routine invoices.
Andre shook his head.
“I didn't write it.”
“Where were you on March 14?”
Andre checked his calendar.
“Nashville.”
“Could Simone access your laptop then?”
“My home desktop.”
“And your email password?”
“Possibly.”
The consultant nodded.
“We'll establish login records.”
Andre leaned back.
All of this had been happening while he worked to create financial security for his family.
The irony made him nauseous.
But the money wasn't the worst part.
Maya was.
That evening he picked her up from Tasha's.
She sat in the passenger seat holding her backpack.
“Where are we going?”
“To a hotel.”
“Why?”
“The house is being looked at.”
“By police?”
Andre glanced at her.
“How did you know?”
“Aunt Tasha talks loud on the phone.”
Despite everything, he almost smiled.
At the hotel Maya stood in the doorway between two connecting rooms.
“Can I sleep in yours?”
“Yes.”
She immediately carried her pillow onto the sofa.
Andre watched her arrange it.
Then he noticed she had packed almost nothing.
Two shirts.
One pair of jeans.
Pajamas.
“Where are your clothes?”
“At home.”
“You have a closet full.”
Maya did not answer.
“Maya?”
“Simone gave some away.”
“When?”
“I don't know.”
“Why?”
“She said I didn't deserve new things if I wasn't grateful.”
Andre closed his eyes.
“How much did she give away?”
“A lot.”
“And you never told me.”
Maya's expression became defensive.
“You never believed me.”
The words struck harder because they were calm.
Andre sat down.
“When did you tell me?”
“Christmas.”
He remembered.
Maya had complained that a red coat was missing.
Simone said Maya probably left it at school.
Andre told Maya to be more responsible.
He remembered her expression afterward.
Small.
Humiliated.
He had forgotten by dinner.
Maya had not.
“You're right,” he said.
She looked surprised.
“I should've listened.”
“Simone said you thought I lost everything.”
“I did say that sometimes.”
“She told me you were tired of me wasting your money.”
Andre shook his head.
“I never said that.”
“She showed me a text.”
His head lifted.
“What text?”
“From you.”
Andre's stomach tightened.
“What did it say?”
Maya thought.
“That you were glad Noah and Kayla appreciated things more than I did.”
“I never wrote that.”
“I know now.”
“How?”
Maya looked toward the black evidence phone no longer in their possession.
“Because she showed me the message on that phone.”
Andre froze.
The hidden phone had not only been used to communicate with Darren.
It had also been used to impersonate him.
And suddenly Andre understood why Maya had stopped calling him during business trips.
May you like
She had believed her father was participating in her rejection.
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