The Girl in Room 117
Chapter 07 - The Girl in Room 117
Room 117 was in a different motel across the county line.
Arthur entered with Marcus shortly after dark.
Sadie sat on the floor between the bed and the wall, clutching an inhaler. Her dark hair was tangled, and she wore the same gray sweater from the security photograph taken the previous evening.
When she saw Arthur, she began to cry.
He lowered himself carefully beside her.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“For what?”
“For bringing you into this.”
Arthur pulled her against his chest.
“You are not responsible for what grown men chose to do.”
Sadie had not been abducted.
She had been hiding.
The recording Grant played at the board meeting had been made after one of his assistants intercepted her outside the company. Grant told her that if she accused him publicly, her mother would be arrested for authorizing fraudulent transfers.
Sadie knew Claire had signed documents without reading them.
She feared Grant had built a case that would send her mother to prison.
“He said you were sick,” Sadie told Arthur. “He said if I pushed you, you might have a stroke.”
“What did you discover?”
Sadie opened her laptop.
She had worked as a junior financial analyst at Hale Meridian for eight months. Three weeks earlier, she noticed invoices for security consulting billed to rural development projects.
The vendors did not have offices, employees, or working telephone numbers.
Payments moved from Hale Meridian to Marrow Ridge Development, then to accounts linked to Sheriff Rourke, Dr. Lowell, and the Iron Vultures motorcycle club.
But the land scheme was only part of it.
Sadie opened another folder.
Twenty-seven million dollars had disappeared from the company’s employee pension reserve.
Arthur stared at the figures.
“Where did it go?”
“I don’t know. The final account is encrypted.”
“Who can access it?”
“Grant. Mom. And you.”
“I haven’t accessed the pension fund in three years.”
Sadie nodded.
“Someone used your credentials.”
Arthur understood why Grant needed him declared incompetent.
If the missing money was discovered, Grant could claim Arthur had transferred it during a period of cognitive decline.
Sadie reached beneath the mattress and removed a flash drive.
“This contains everything I copied.”
Marcus took it but did not insert it into any device.
“We’ll have an independent forensic team examine it.”
Arthur looked at Sadie.
“Why did Claire give me the key?”
“Mom found me this afternoon. She said she didn’t know who to believe anymore, but she knew Grant was lying about one thing.”
“What thing?”
Sadie’s face tightened.
“He told her I had left the state. Then she saw my coat in the trunk of his car.”
A vehicle stopped outside.
Headlights swept across the curtains.
Marcus moved toward the window.
Two county patrol cars entered the parking lot.
Sadie gripped Arthur’s hand.
“They found me.”
May you like
Sheriff Rourke stepped from the first car carrying a warrant.
It accused Arthur Hale of kidnapping his own granddaughter.
