The Money Behind the Wedding
Chapter 04 - The Money Behind the Wedding
By midnight, Emily was no longer a bride celebrating her marriage.
She was sitting in a hotel conference room in her wedding dress while her husband explained why his family foundation was missing nearly two million dollars.
Ryan had learned about irregularities three months earlier.
A junior accountant had found transfers from the Caldwell Community Foundation to several consulting companies. The companies looked legitimate on paper, but their addresses led to mailbox stores and empty offices.
Ryan had confronted Vivian.
She told him the payments were confidential donor-development expenses.
He had believed her.
Or, as Emily saw it, he had chosen not to look harder.
"You were going to become a trustee tonight," Emily said. "And then what?"
"I was going to request a full audit."
"After our wedding?"
Ryan nodded.
"So your mother knew."
"She knew I was asking questions."
Emily looked toward the dark window.
All evening she had been thinking about the cake.
Now she wondered whether someone had ruined it to create enough chaos to prevent Ryan from signing the trustee papers.
Vivian sat at the opposite end of the room with an attorney she had called twenty minutes earlier.
She had stopped speaking to Emily completely.
Mark, the security officer, entered carrying a printed access log.
"The service hallway was opened with a vendor badge at 5:42 p.m.," he said.
"Whose badge?" Ryan asked.
Mark placed the paper on the table.
The wedding coordinator.
Celeste Monroe.
Emily frowned. "Celeste left before the cake fell. She told me she was sick."
Mark nodded.
"Her badge was used after she left."
Vivian's attorney leaned forward. "That proves nothing."
"No," Mark said. "But this might."
He set down a second page.
A wire transfer had been discovered in Celeste's payment file.
Seventy-five thousand dollars.
The sender was not Vivian Caldwell.
It was Ryan.
Emily looked at her husband.
Ryan stared at the paper as if he had never seen it before.
"I didn't send that."
Vivian laughed bitterly.
May you like
For the first time all night, mother and son looked equally terrified.
Because someone had just made Ryan look like the man behind the sabotage.
