My instincts screamed at me. Chloe wouldn’t show up unannounced unless it was important. I couldn’t let Julian sacrifice his money if there was another way, if there was truth hidden.
“Wait,” I told Julian, placing my hand over his on his phone. “Hold the transfer. Let’s see what Chloe has.”
Julian hesitated, then slowly lowered his phone, his eyes filled with a new kind of hope. Marcus, however, scoffed impatiently.
“This is ridiculous,” Marcus said, glaring at Howard Fenn. “Can we just get this done?”
“No,” I replied firmly. “My daughter has arrived. She needs to be heard.”
Arthur Pendelton, ever the stickler for process, nodded. “Let’s bring her in. This is a family matter, after all.”
A moment later, Chloe burst into the office, her face flushed, carrying a worn leather briefcase clutched tightly in her hand. Her eyes, so much like my own, scanned the room, landing on me, then Julian, then hardening as they settled on Marcus and Howard.
“Mom,” she said, her voice a little breathless. “I think you’ll want to see this.”
She placed the briefcase on Mr. Pendelton’s desk, clicked open the brass latches, and flipped it open. Inside, nestled among a tangle of cables, was a small, black external hard drive.
“What is that?” Marcus demanded, his voice laced with suspicion.
“This,” Chloe announced, pulling out the drive and a connecting cable, “is Howard Fenn’s private accounting backup drive.”
Howard Fenn went pale, his eyes wide with alarm. “What? That’s impossible!”
Chloe plugged the drive into Mr. Pendelton’s computer, her fingers flying across the keyboard. “I did an internship at his firm last summer. I knew they kept off-site backups.”
A spreadsheet filled the screen, lines of transactions scrolling past. Chloe pointed to a specific entry, highlighting it.
“Here,” she said, her voice clear and strong. “The $450,000 wire transfer. It was never sent to Mom’s account.”
A stunned silence fell. Marcus leaned forward, his eyes fixed on the screen.
“It was routed,” Chloe continued, “through a series of shell companies, and ultimately, into this offshore account.” She pointed to the account name on the screen. “Registered to ‘Montgomery Holdings LLC’—which, according to public records, is solely owned by Marcus Montgomery.”
The room reeled. Marcus’s face drained of color, his composure finally cracking. He had orchestrated the entire fraudulent transfer himself.
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