Martha, we bought a professional agency deck for the anniversary pitch, so please put your hand-bound portfolio away, my best friend and business partner of twenty years, Evelyn Brooks, said quie...
Chloe’s eyes, still red from her tears, held a new resolve. “I think I found something else, Martha. After our talk yesterday.”
We sat in a dimly lit corner of the coffee shop, away from prying ears. The tension in the air was thick, but a shared sense of purpose had replaced Chloe’s earlier fear.
“Evelyn’s office,” Chloe began, her voice low. “She’s very particular about her recycling. Shreds everything.”
“What did you find?” I prompted, my heart racing.
“She has this tiny personal shredding bin, you know, for sensitive stuff,” Chloe explained, her gaze darting around the room. “And then the big corporate shredder for everything else. But sometimes, things just… don’t make it to the big one.”
She pushed a manila folder across the table. It was thick, slightly crumpled. “I got to it before the cleaners. From her personal bin.”
My fingers trembled as I opened the folder. Inside were fragments of paper, painstakingly taped back together.
They were physical bank deposit slips. Stamped by a local branch on LaSalle Street. The First Midwest Bank logo was clearly visible.
Each slip showed a direct transfer from Albright & Brooks Marketing’s primary operating account into “Apex Creative Services’ ” account. The dates spanned the last six months, mirroring the payment schedule I’d identified.
And on every single deposit slip, scrawled clumsily, was my forged signature. Beside it, an “internal job code” that was completely invalid, a string of numbers that meant nothing within our system. It was Evelyn’s clumsy attempt to make it look like a legitimate internal transaction.
My breath caught in my throat. This was it. Undeniable physical evidence.
“She was making these deposits herself,” Chloe whispered, pointing to the handwritten notes on the slips. “Not through the online system. This was manual. Probably cash withdrawals, then direct deposits to Apex.”
“Why manual?” I asked, a new piece of the puzzle falling into place.
“To avoid the digital trail,” Chloe explained, her voice hardening. “Online transfers, even internal ones, leave more metadata. A paper deposit slip, especially if she’s using a different teller each time, is harder to link directly.”
The image of Evelyn, my “best friend” of twenty years, walking into a bank branch with my forged signature, funneling our company’s money into her secret account, solidified in my mind. The betrayal was staggering.
“This is direct proof,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “This connects the corporate fund siphoning directly to Evelyn’s private accounts. And it uses my forged signature as authorization.”
Chloe nodded, her face grim. “She was careful, Martha. But not careful enough.”
The manila folder felt heavy in my hands. This wasn’t just about my reputation or my job anymore. This was about criminal fraud, perpetrated by the woman I had trusted with my career, my savings, and my friendship.
I had the evidence. Now, I just needed to know how to use it.
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