Chapter 6 - The Man Her Father Trusted
Thomas reached for his phone.
Clara caught his wrist.
“Don’t warn him.”
Her father looked down at her hand.
She released him immediately.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
He put the phone on the table.
Graham Pike had worked for Thomas for seventeen years.
He had also introduced Richard to the family.
“You told me Richard was solid,” Clara said.
Thomas closed his eyes.
“Graham told me he was.”
Dana brought in a separate attorney for the company and insisted that Clara’s interests remain Clara’s own.
By the next afternoon, a small outside accounting team was reviewing records.
Graham was told that access would be limited during a review.
He called Thomas eleven times.
Thomas answered none of them.
Then he called Clara.
She let it go to voicemail.
“Sweetheart, your father is upset. Richard made mistakes, but there are employees to consider. Good people. You understand that, right?”
She played the message for Dana.
“He sounds like he’s asking me to be reasonable.”
“What is he actually asking you to do?”
Clara listened again.
To stop.
He was asking her to stop.
That evening, Thomas admitted something else.
“I put personal money into Richard’s fund last year.”
“How much?”
“Six hundred thousand.”
The number landed between them.
“Did you tell him I doubted the investment?” Clara asked.
Thomas’s silence answered.
She remembered that night now.
Richard had come home furious that she was making him look weak to her father.
Thomas sat down hard.
“Clara, I didn’t know.”
“I know you didn’t.”
She needed him to hear the rest.
“But when I said he scared me, you told me strong personalities could clash.”
His face changed in a way she had never seen.
No defense.
No correction.
Only recognition.
“I remember,” he said.
“I needed you to ask one more question.”
He stared at the floor.
“I will carry that for the rest of my life.”
Clara was too tired to comfort him, and for once she did not try.
The next morning, the accountants found an unexplained payment routed through a vendor account.
It had left Vance Federal Systems three days before Richard’s fund met a major withdrawal demand.
The approval belonged to Graham.
The supporting authorization appeared to come from Thomas.
May you like
Thomas had been out of the country on the date it was signed.
And the witness listed beneath his name was Clara.
