A husband tried to kill his wife's career, and nearly her, while she lay injured in a hospital bed.
The small study in my apartment had become my war room. Piles of old firm reports, industry journals, and even old news clippings about Caldwell & Associates lay scattered across the desk. My physical recovery, though slow, had given me enough mobility to dig.
I had tried to piece together any hints of past “incapacitations” Arthur Jenkins had mentioned. It was like searching for ghosts; the public record was too clean, the internal firm documents I could still access were carefully sanitized.
David had been thorough.
My old firm laptop was useless, locked down. My access to shared drives, even old project archives, was gone. But David hadn’t accounted for my meticulous personal archiving. I had saved copies of many project proposals, initial budgets, and even email threads on external hard drives over the years, a habit born from paranoia about digital loss, not marital betrayal.
I painstakingly sifted through years of data. My fingers ached from typing, not from injuries this time. I looked for anything unusual: unexplained budget overruns, odd vendor payments, or consultants with vague descriptions.
It was a needle in a haystack, and my search was hampered by my inability to directly access real-time firm financials. I needed an inside source, but who could I trust? Alex Chen was clearly too intimidated. Maria had clammed up.
Then I remembered Alistair Finch, the firm’s senior accountant. He was a nervous, precise man, prone to flustering under pressure. He relied heavily on David for his position, but he was also meticulous about numbers. He hated discrepancies.
I needed a reason to call him, something mundane enough not to raise David’s suspicions. I found an old expense report for a client dinner David and I had hosted months ago, one that had been filed right before my accident but never fully processed. It was a perfect pretext.
I dialed Alistair’s direct line from my personal cell phone, hoping David wouldn’t be in his office.
“Caldwell & Associates, Alistair Finch speaking,” his voice was reedy, instantly recognizable.
“Alistair, it’s Eliza Rollins,” I said, trying to sound as normal as possible. “I’m calling about that client dinner expense report from October. Has it been processed? I just wanted to make sure everything was in order before year-end.”
There was a noticeable gulp on the other end. “Oh, Eliza! You’re… you’re back? Recovering well, I trust?”
“Taking it day by day,” I replied smoothly. “But my mind is still on the firm. So, the expense report?”
“Yes, yes, the report. It’s… um… it’s in the queue,” he stammered, sounding even more flustered than usual. “Just a few minor… reconciliation issues.”
“Reconciliation issues? It was a straightforward dinner. What kind of issues?” I pressed, trying to inject just enough professional curiosity without sounding suspicious.
“Nothing for you to worry about, Eliza,” he said quickly, almost too quickly. “Just some… some cross-referencing with other accounts. Routine, entirely routine.”
Then, I heard a faint rustling sound in the background, like papers being shuffled. Alistair mumbled something away from the receiver, but his voice was still loud enough for me to catch a few words.
“…off-book disbursement for the Stonegate Holdings invoice… David insisted on handling it personally, said it was a sensitive matter…”
My breath caught in my throat. Stonegate Holdings. Off-book disbursement. David insisted on handling it personally.
“Alistair?” I said, cutting him off, my voice sharper than I intended. “Did you say ‘Stonegate Holdings’?”
There was a beat of terrified silence. “Eliza? Did you hear that? I was just… muttering to myself. Nothing important. Just old accounts.” His voice was high-pitched now, laced with panic.
“Alistair, what is Stonegate Holdings?” I asked, pushing my advantage. “I don’t recognize that name. Is it a new vendor?”
“No! No, Eliza, it’s nothing!” he practically shrieked. “Please, I have to go. Mr. Caldwell expects these reports by end of day. I truly must go!”
He hung up with a click that echoed in the quiet of my study.
My hand tightened on the phone. “Stonegate Holdings.” The name resonated with the “shell companies” Arthur had mentioned. Alistair’s panicked reaction, the immediate hang-up, all confirmed it. This wasn’t some minor reconciliation issue. It was a crucial lead.
I immediately went to my computer, my fingers flying over the keyboard despite their lingering stiffness. I searched “Stonegate Holdings.”
The results were sparse. A small, obscure company registered in Delaware, with a post office box listed as its address. No website, no discernible business activity. It was exactly what a shell corporation looked like.
Digging deeper, I found that Stonegate Holdings had been registered just three years prior, around the same time David had taken over more financial oversight from his father. The registration agent was a small, independent law firm that specialized in corporate anonymity.
This was it. Concrete evidence of David’s hidden dealings, not just theoretical corruption. This wasn’t just my husband trying to sideline me; this was a man using the firm as his personal piggy bank, hiding money through an opaque entity. The implications were vast, touching not just my professional standing but the financial integrity of Caldwell & Associates itself.
Alistair’s accidental slip of the tongue was the crack in David’s carefully constructed facade. Now, I just had to figure out how to pry it wide open without being crushed in the process.
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