Chapter 13 - The Man Inside the Company
The Carter Living Group executive office employed twenty-three people.
Only six had administrative network privileges.
One was Chief Financial Officer Gregory Hale.
Greg had worked for Carol for fifteen years.
Emily trusted him.
That was exactly why Detective Reyes asked them not to warn him.
Priya Shah quietly reviewed access records.
Nathan obtained board authorization for an independent digital audit.
Emily continued going to work as normally as possible.
It felt absurd.
She sat in meetings discussing staffing ratios and facility renovations while police investigators traced who might have helped frame her for harming her baby.
Greg behaved exactly as he always had.
Calm.
Helpful.
Concerned.
He stopped by Emily’s office on Tuesday afternoon.
“How are you holding up?”
Emily looked at him.
“Fine.”
“And Sophie?”
“Better.”
He shook his head sympathetically.
“This whole thing with Rachel is terrible.”
Emily’s fingers tightened beneath the desk.
No one had told Greg investigators suspected Rachel.
“What thing with Rachel?”
He blinked.
“The court filing.”
Of course.
That was public within the company.
Emily relaxed slightly.
Greg continued.
“Carol would hate this.”
There it was again.
Everyone used Carol now.
As shield.
Weapon.
Permission.
“I’m sure she would.”
Greg leaned against the doorway.
“If you need time away, the board would understand.”
Emily looked up.
“Why would I take time away?”
“You have a lot happening.”
“I can handle it.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I know.”
He smiled and left.
Ten minutes later, Priya entered and closed the door.
“It was Greg.”
Emily stared.
“The login?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“The credentials were his.”
“Someone could have stolen them.”
“Possibly. But there’s more.”
Priya placed printed records on the desk.
Greg had approved four of the six Northfield Consulting invoices.
Emily felt betrayed in a surprisingly personal way.
“He worked for Mom.”
“Yes.”
“She trusted him.”
Priya remained silent.
Emily understood.
Trust was not evidence.
“Why?”
“We found payments from a company controlled by Mark Mercer to an account owned by Greg’s wife.”
“How much?”
“Forty-two thousand dollars over eighteen months.”
Emily leaned back.
“Bribes?”
“Could be.”
“Consulting?”
“Could be.”
Priya’s tone mirrored Reyes now.
Everyone around Emily spoke conditional language while her life became increasingly certain.
Detective Reyes arrived within the hour.
Greg was escorted from the building for questioning.
He was not arrested.
Not immediately.
But his company access was suspended.
By evening, Reyes called Emily.
Greg had admitted helping Rachel hide the vendor payments.
He claimed he believed the money would be repaid.
Rachel had told him Carol had informally approved the transfers.
Greg knew that was not true.
But he had his own motive.
Mark’s company had paid his wife’s design business for work that was never fully performed.
Greg had approved fraudulent invoices to keep the relationship hidden.
“And the photo?” Emily asked.
Reyes sighed.
“He sent it.”
Emily felt cold.
“Why?”
“Rachel told him you were trying to destroy her family and expose everyone.”
“So he threatened me.”
“He claims he intended only to scare you.”
Emily nearly laughed.
“That makes it better?”
“No.”
“Did he know about Sophie?”
“He says no.”
“Do you believe him?”
“Digital evidence currently supports that Rachel did not tell him about the injury until after the hospital report.”
Emily absorbed that.
The conspiracy had layers.
Greg helped hide money.
Mark helped hide camera footage.
Rachel connected both.
But the injury itself still appeared to have happened between Rachel and Sophie.
That mattered.
It kept the truth from becoming too convenient.
Human wrongdoing was rarely a room full of villains planning everything together.
It was people protecting themselves one bad decision at a time.
That evening, Emily visited Carol’s house again.
She sat at the kitchen table where her mother used to drink tea.
Daniel joined her after Sophie fell asleep in the portable crib upstairs.
“I keep wondering when Rachel changed,” Emily said.
Daniel looked at her.
“Maybe she didn’t.”
“That’s worse.”
Emily remembered childhood Rachel teaching her to ride a bicycle.
Rachel holding her hand at their father’s funeral.
Rachel decorating Sophie’s nursery.
Love and cruelty did not erase each other.
That was the most difficult thing to accept.
Rachel had loved her.
Rachel may still love her.
And Rachel had still chosen to destroy her.
Daniel reached across the table.
“You don’t have to understand her tonight.”
Emily squeezed his hand.
Her phone rang.
Claire Bennett from the hospital.
Emily answered.
“Claire?”
“I wanted you to hear this directly.”
Emily sat straighter.
“What?”
“The hospital laboratory finished documenting the cosmetic residue from the gauze.”
“And?”
“It’s consistent with a high-coverage professional concealer.”
Emily closed her eyes.
Claire continued.
“And Detective Reyes asked whether we retained the packaging from a personal item found in the examination trash that day.”
Emily frowned.
“What personal item?”
“A makeup blotting sheet.”
“I didn’t use one.”
“I know.”
Emily’s heartbeat accelerated.
“It was found in the trash outside your examination room.”
“Who put it there?”
“We checked hallway security footage.”
Claire paused.
“Rachel did.”
Emily stopped breathing.
“Rachel was at the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Approximately twenty minutes before she called us.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Rachel had not merely called.
May you like
She had physically come to the hospital before Emily knew the bruise existed.
And she had left without ever entering the examination room.
