Part 4: What My Father Bought
“Last night at 6:10,” Lauren said, “your executive assistant signed a sworn affidavit with the state attorney general’s office. She states that you instructed her to notarize this waiver on September twelfth. She states that Paige was never present, and that you told her if she refused, she’d be the one explaining the missing invoices to an auditor.”
“That’s a lie.” Brandon’s palms came down flat on the table, and the sound cracked across the glass. “Megan is loyal to me.”
“Megan signed a full cooperation agreement,” Lauren said, unbothered. “She brought her notary journal. Your entry for September twelfth is in your handwriting, not hers.”
The male investigator typed something without looking up.
“Your brother also delivered your late father’s private ledger this morning,” Lauren went on. “Lakeshore Pinnacle LLC. Grandview Site Services. Both are shell vendors registered to a P.O. box you rent in Kentwood. Our forensic team traced over four hundred thousand dollars moved out of company accounts and your joint family accounts in the last eleven months.”
Brenda turned her head slowly toward her son. Her pearl earrings caught the light.
Lauren touched her tablet, and the wall monitor behind her filled with a gray grid of timestamps and numbers.
“And at 2:15 this morning,” she said, “someone used remote-desktop software from your home internet connection to take control of your terminal at company headquarters. From there, they tried to break into Paige’s trust using her father’s birthday, her mother’s maiden name, and your daughter’s birth date.”
She let that last part sit for a moment.
“Your daughter’s birth date, Mr. Faulkner.”
Douglas Bennett stared at the screen for a long time. Then he picked up the red-covered document, read the first page again, all the way to the bottom, and set it down.
He clicked his gold pen shut, put it in his breast pocket, and snapped his briefcase closed with two sharp sounds.
“Douglas,” Brandon said. “What are you doing?”
“I’m withdrawing as your counsel, effective immediately.” Douglas stood and buttoned his jacket. When Brandon grabbed his sleeve, he pulled his arm back, firmly and without hurrying. “You’ve just discussed felony bank fraud in front of two state regulators. Stop talking, Brandon. Hire a criminal defense attorney.”
He nodded once to Russell, once to Lauren, and walked to the elevator. Nobody watched him go except Brenda.
When the doors closed, she turned to Brandon. Her hands were trembling so hard that her rings clicked against each other.
“Tell me this isn’t true,” she said. Her voice cracked right down the middle. “Tell me you didn’t gamble away your father’s company and drag our name into a criminal investigation.”
“Supply costs doubled, Mom!” Brandon’s face had gone from pink to a blotchy red. “Lumber, steel, everything. I was going to pay it all back the second the hospital bid cleared.”
“By stealing from Paige?”
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