Chapter 2 - The Missing 187
Loretta did not sleep.
Stellan had given her a guest room larger than the apartment she had been saving for.
Nobody locked the door.
Nobody stood outside it.
Fresh clothes appeared on a chair along with a handwritten note from Evelyn telling her breakfast would be available whenever she wanted it.
All of that should have calmed her.
It did not.
At 5:17 a.m., Loretta returned to the office.
Stellan was already there.
Black shirt.
Sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms.
Coffee untouched beside him.
He had spread copies of the Varga statements across the desk but had not opened Loretta's ledger.
“You waited?” she asked.
“It isn't mine.”
Such a simple answer.
Victor would never have given it.
Loretta sat.
“What did my mother do for your family?”
Stellan leaned back.
“She was hired by one of our holding companies before she married Victor.”
“As a bookkeeper?”
“Initially.”
“And later?”
“She became one of the few people my father trusted to review internal accounts.”
Loretta stared at him.
“You're saying my mother audited you?”
“Unofficially.”
“Why unofficially?”
Evelyn answered from the doorway.
“Because she found something dangerous to someone's career.”
Loretta turned.
Evelyn entered carrying three mugs.
For the next hour, they reconstructed a story Annelise had hidden from her daughter.
Fourteen years earlier, Varga businesses had been expanding rapidly.
There were hundreds of contractors, loans and property transactions.
Amid the legitimate expenses, Annelise noticed tiny inconsistencies.
Not large enough individually to cause alarm.
But the numbers repeated.
$18,700.
$37,400.
$56,100.
Always multiples of 18,700.
Loretta looked at the old ledger.
“Someone was splitting transactions.”
Evelyn nodded.
“Your mother believed so.”
“Why?”
“To hide them beneath internal review thresholds.”
Loretta's fingers moved faster.
She began creating columns on a legal pad.
Dates.
Amounts.
Recipients.
After twenty minutes she stopped.
“All these companies connect to Victor.”
Stellan said nothing.
Some companies had dissolved.
Others had been owned by Victor's associates.
One listed an address Loretta recognized.
A warehouse Victor claimed he had never visited.
“What happened when Mom found this?”
Evelyn looked uncomfortable.
“She confronted my husband.”
“Your husband knew?”
“He started an investigation.”
“And?”
“He died eight weeks later.”
Loretta stared.
Stellan spoke immediately.
“Natural causes.”
His tone made clear he did not want her imagination going somewhere unsupported.
“My father had a cardiac condition. His death wasn't connected.”
Loretta appreciated the clarification.
“So Mom was left with the evidence.”
“Yes.”
“And Victor?”
“We didn't know he was involved.”
Loretta rubbed her forehead.
“My mother married him three months later.”
Evelyn's expression carried old regret.
“We lost contact with her.”
Loretta remembered those years.
Victor had been charming.
Attentive.
Protective.
He had encouraged Annelise to stop working.
At the time Loretta believed it romantic.
Now she saw something else.
Isolation.
Not imprisonment.
Not dramatic threats.
Just small decisions.
Why work when he could support her?
Why keep old colleagues?
Why bother Evelyn with problems?
Why maintain accounts in her own name?
By the time Annelise became ill, Victor controlled nearly everything.
Loretta looked at Stellan.
“The $187,000.”
“It was the first amount your mother positively identified.”
“Then why do you say Victor owes you exactly that?”
“Because three weeks ago one of his former companies resurfaced.”
Stellan pushed forward a recent document.
A dormant account had received money after fourteen years of inactivity.
Exactly $187,000.
Loretta read the destination.
Then she read it again.
“This account belongs to me.”
Stellan nodded.
Loretta stood so abruptly her chair moved backward.
“No.”
“It was opened when you were twelve.”
“I don't have an account there.”
“You didn't open it.”
Victor had.
Using paperwork from when he became her legal guardian.
Loretta's hands went cold.
“Why send stolen money into an account with my name?”
“To make you responsible if anyone discovered it,” Evelyn said quietly.
Loretta turned away.
There it was again.
Victor making someone else carry the consequences.
First Annelise.
Now Loretta.
“He wasn't offering me to settle his debt,” she said.
Stellan's expression hardened.
“No.”
“He wanted me inside your house.”
“Yes.”
“So if you found the account—”
“You'd appear to be the person controlling it.”
Loretta stared toward the windows.
Victor had not panicked because she might leave.
He had panicked because she carried the ledger.
He had deliberately brought her to the one family capable of connecting it to him.
Why?
Unless...
“He didn't know I had the ledger until tonight.”
“Probably not,” Stellan said.
“Then why send me here?”
Nobody answered.
Loretta returned to the documents.
She worked through breakfast.
Then lunch.
By mid-afternoon she found it.
A newly incorporated consulting company.
Its mailing address led to a commercial building.
Its ownership was hidden behind another company.
But the accountant who registered it had used a contact number Loretta recognized.
Victor's.
She circled it.
“He needs someone with access to your internal accounts.”
Stellan's gaze sharpened.
Loretta continued.
“He thought you would make me work the debt.”
“Yes.”
“He expected me to become useful.”
“Yes.”
“Then sooner or later he'd contact me and ask for information.”
“That would be my assumption.”
Loretta looked at him.
“You knew that last night?”
“I suspected.”
“And you let me come anyway.”
“You chose to come.”
“Knowing I might be used as bait?”
“No.”
Stellan's voice became firmer.
“You're not bait.”
He pushed the documents away.
“If you walk out now, Victor still owes me money, and I deal with him through lawyers and financial investigators. You don't owe me anything.”
Loretta studied his face.
“Then what do you want from me?”
“Nothing you don't choose to give.”
She almost hated how much those words affected her.
Because nobody had spoken to her like that in years.
Evelyn returned around four with another folder.
“Our external auditor found something.”
Inside was a copy of a recent authorization request.
Someone had attempted to gain access to a Varga subsidiary's payment system.
The request had been rejected.
The applicant's name was false.
The supporting professional certification was not.
Loretta recognized the license number immediately.
It was hers.
Someone had copied her credentials.
Victor.
Loretta sat very still.
Stellan read her expression.
“You recognize it.”
“Yes.”
She took out her phone.
Seven missed calls from Victor.
Three messages.
The first angry.
The second apologetic.
The third frightening only because it sounded so normal.
Come home. We can fix this.
Loretta showed Stellan.
He did not take the phone from her.
“Do you want to answer?”
“No.”
“Then don't.”
Loretta deleted nothing.
An accountant learned early that emotion faded.
Records remained.
At 6:32 p.m., another message arrived.
This one contained a photograph.
Loretta opened it.
Her old bedroom.
The mattress had been pulled away.
Drawers emptied.
Books scattered across the floor.
Victor had searched everything.
Beneath the image were five words.
Where is the second ledger?
Loretta stopped breathing for a second.
Stellan noticed.
“What?”
She turned the phone toward him.
“There isn't a second ledger.”
Evelyn, standing behind him, went completely still.
Loretta looked at her.
“You know something.”
Evelyn did not answer immediately.
Loretta rose.
“What second ledger?”
Evelyn slowly placed her tablet on the desk.
“Annelise kept two sets of records.”
Loretta felt the room shift beneath her.
“Where is the other one?”
Evelyn looked toward the black ledger Loretta had carried out of Victor's house.
Then back at Loretta.
“Your mother gave it to me fourteen years ago.”
Loretta's voice dropped.
“You have it?”
“No.”
“Then where is it?”
May you like
Evelyn's answer changed everything.
“I gave it back to her the night before she married Victor.”
