He looked uncomfortable. “Evelyn,” he said, gesturing for me to close the door. “I got a call this morning from Jim Gable. You know, from Gable Industries. He’s a friend of your father’s.”
I felt a cold knot form in my stomach. Gable Industries was one of our firm’s major clients.
“Jim mentioned a difficult family situation,” Mr. Harrison continued, choosing his words carefully. “He was concerned. We have a reputation to maintain. Evelyn, our clients need to see us as stable, trustworthy.”
They weren’t just attacking me. They were attacking my career.
They thought shame was a weapon. I saw it as a hostile variable that needed to be neutralized.
“It’s a private financial matter that is being resolved, sir,” I said, my voice perfectly level. “There is no cause for concern.”
That night, I decided to conduct a deeper audit. If they were going to make this public, I needed to know the full extent of their financial exposure.
For years, I had had login credentials for their online banking to manage their bills. I assumed they had never bothered to change them.
I was right.
I started pulling statements, cross-referencing dates and amounts. It didn’t take long to find the first anomaly.
A large recurring payment to a credit company I didn’t recognize. Then I found another and another.
These weren’t my parents’ typical expenses. The amounts were too large, the vendors too luxurious.