Chapter 12 - The Missing Auditor
We did not turn Julian’s threat into a mystery bigger than the facts.
Nora found the previous auditor that afternoon.
Her name was Helen Price.
She was alive.
She had lost her job.
For some reason, that ordinary cruelty made me angrier.
No dramatic disappearance.
No hidden grave.
Just a woman who asked the right questions and got crushed for asking.
Helen agreed to a video call.
She looked tired until Nora mentioned Harbor Ridge.
Then she leaned toward the camera.
“Did they use your credentials too?”
I stopped breathing.
“Yes.”
Helen nodded slowly.
“They used mine on a reconciliation I refused to sign.”
“What happened?”
“They said I’d approved it and then changed my mind.”
“Could you prove otherwise?”
“I had a draft with my comments.”
She looked down.
“They threatened a lawsuit.”
“So you left.”
“I had a husband receiving treatment.”
Her voice tightened.
“I needed health insurance more than I needed to be brave.”
“You were brave,” I said.
“You kept the draft.”
Helen looked at me for a long moment.
Then she opened a drawer.
“I kept more than that.”
She sent correspondence showing Eleanor instructing staff to route questions through Julian.
There were flagged payments.
Altered summaries.
A notation beside the original Mercer contribution.
RECLASSIFY PRINCIPAL.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“They treated money with restrictions as money they could spend.”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
The money he intended for a child’s future had become a family’s private account.
Helen sent one last document.
A letter Robert had written six months before his death.
He had requested the original ledger.
Eleanor replied that it had been destroyed during an office move.
Helen had added a note.
Original retained at house.
Blue archive box.
Gabriel looked up sharply.
“What?”
“Eleanor kept our family papers in a blue box.”
“Thirty-eight years ago?”
“Yes.”
Nora made no promise we would get it.
She sent the new material to the investigator and the appropriate authorities.
Then Helen said, “There’s a deadline.”
“The trust review?”
“No.”
She held up a recent email she had received from a former colleague.
“They’re closing the administrative company on Friday.”
May you like
Friday was two days away.
The remaining files were scheduled for destruction.
