Chapter 7 - THE EMAIL
The email reached forty-three employees, seven investors, two board members, and our outside accounting firm.
Within nine minutes, my phone became unusable.
Calls.
Texts.
Slack messages.
Investor questions.
One message from my operations director simply said:
WHAT IS HAPPENING?
Rachel read Daniel's email again.
"Don't respond publicly."
"I have to say something."
"Not until we know whether he actually sent it."
I stared at her.
"It came from his account."
"That isn't what I asked."
Thomas sat silently across the table.
He looked sick.
I called Daniel again.
Voicemail.
Then I called his wife.
She answered.
"Maddie?"
"Is Daniel there?"
"No."
"Do you know where he is?"
"He left early."
"For work?"
"I thought so."
"When did you last speak to him?"
"About an hour ago."
"Was he okay?"
She hesitated.
"No."
My heartbeat changed.
"What happened?"
"He got a message."
"From who?"
"I don't know."
"He looked at his phone and went completely pale."
Rachel leaned closer.
I continued.
"Did he say anything?"
"He said he had made a terrible mistake."
"What mistake?"
"He wouldn't tell me."
Then Daniel's wife started crying.
"He said if anyone called, I should tell them he was sorry."
I stood.
"Where did he go?"
"I don't know."
Rachel took out her phone.
"We need to notify law enforcement."
I shook my head.
"Not yet."
"Maddie."
"Give me five minutes."
I opened Daniel's earlier email to me.
The one containing the suspicious vendor records.
The timestamps showed he had sent those files at 8:13 a.m.
The company-wide accusation went out at 11:06 a.m.
Less than three hours apart.
Why would a man help expose fraud and then accuse me of fraud?
Unless the second email wasn't really his choice.
Rachel saw the same contradiction.
"Blackmail."
"Or someone accessed his account."
Thomas suddenly spoke.
"Barbara has a private investigator."
Rachel looked at him.
"What?"
"She's used him before."
"For what?"
"Employees."
"Whose employees?"
"Bradley's."
Thomas looked ashamed again.
"Competitors."
I stared at him.
"And me?"
He didn't answer.
That was an answer.
Rachel asked.
"Name."
"Frank Delaney."
She wrote it down.
My phone rang.
Daniel.
I grabbed it.
"Daniel?"
At first, nothing.
Then breathing.
"Maddie."
"Where are you?"
"I'm sorry."
"What happened?"
"I shouldn't have done it."
"Done what?"
"The guarantee."
I closed my eyes.
"Did you authorize it?"
"Yes."
Rachel started taking notes.
I put the call on speaker.
"Why?"
Daniel sounded broken.
"Bradley came to me six months ago."
"What did he say?"
"He said you had approved the increase."
"I didn't."
"I know that now."
"Why didn't you verify with me?"
"He had documents."
"What documents?"
"Emails."
My stomach sank.
"From me?"
"Yes."
"They looked real."
Rachel mouthed one word.
FORGED.
Daniel continued.
"Then I found out last week."
"Found out what?"
"That the money wasn't going where Bradley said it was."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I was going to."
"What stopped you?"
There was a long silence.
Then he whispered.
"They had pictures of my daughter."
Every person in the room went still.
"What kind of pictures?"
"Her leaving school."
My skin crawled.
"They knew her schedule."
"Daniel, where are you?"
"I can't tell you."
"Yes, you can."
"No."
"Did you send the email?"
Silence.
"Daniel."
"Yes."
My heart sank.
He continued quickly.
"But the accusations aren't true."
"I know."
"They wrote it."
"Who?"
"I never met him."
"Who contacted you?"
"A man named Frank."
Thomas closed his eyes.
Rachel wrote the name harder.
Daniel started crying.
"He said if I didn't send it, they'd destroy my family."
I gripped the phone.
"You need to go to the police."
"I can't."
"Yes, you can."
"They'll come after my daughter."
"Daniel."
"Maddie, I'm sorry."
Then the line went dead.
I called back.
Nothing.
Rachel was already speaking to a detective.
I turned toward Thomas.
"Your wife hired someone to threaten my CFO's child?"
"I don't know."
"You knew she had a private investigator."
"Yes."
"You knew she used him on people."
"Yes."
"And you stayed married to her."
He looked at me.
"I told myself knowing wasn't the same as participating."
I laughed bitterly.
"That's convenient."
He nodded.
"It was."
My phone buzzed.
An unknown number.
One photo.
Daniel's car.
Parked beside a train station.
The driver's door was open.
Then a message appeared.
STOP DIGGING.
Rachel saw it.
"So much for this being a divorce."
Another message arrived.
This one contained no words.
Just a photograph of me standing outside the rental house the night before.
May you like
Taken from across the road.
Someone had been watching before Bradley pushed me into the pool.
