Margaret stared at him.
Then she smiled again.
“Be careful, Alexander. The truth is not always as comforting as people imagine.”
She left the room.
The board meeting ended ten minutes later, but Alexander remained behind.
Richard approached him.
“You shouldn’t have confronted her in front of the directors.”
“Why? Because she might be guilty?”
“Because you don’t understand what you’re dealing with.”
“Then explain it to me.”
Richard looked exhausted.
“Margaret has spent decades building relationships with people who can make problems disappear. If you challenge her without evidence, she’ll destroy your credibility before you can prove anything.”
Alexander picked up his briefcase.
“Then I’ll find the evidence.”
He left the building and drove to the old Whitmore headquarters, a smaller office complex the company had sold years earlier.
The brass key opened a service entrance beneath the building.
Inside, a narrow corridor led to a storage area filled with boxes, filing cabinets, and obsolete computer equipment. The room smelled of dust and old paper.
Alexander followed the numbers on a handwritten map his father had provided.
Storage Room 17.
The key turned with a metallic click.
Inside stood a single filing cabinet.
Most of its drawers were empty.
The bottom drawer was locked.
Alexander tried the brass key again.
It opened.
Inside lay a thick black folder containing transaction records, printed emails, and several handwritten notes.
The first document showed a transfer of $4.8 million from Whitmore Global Holdings to a company called Northbridge Capital.
The second showed another transfer.
Then another.
The transactions had been divided into smaller amounts and routed through several intermediary businesses.
At the bottom of the folder was a printed email dated twelve years earlier.
The sender was Margaret Hale.
The recipient was an unidentified account.
