Page 113 of A Love Most Fatal

The staff had cleaned up and gone by this point, so I paced outside a while, Ranger huffing by the door wanting to go inside for once. I walked around the pool, watched the water lap lightly against the blue tiles, and thought through every conversation I’d had with her over the last week.

She was so sure. I saw the sorrow and heartbreak in her eyes—I’m not so self-deprecating to say I don’t know where the pain came from. She wanted me but neededhim. She needed an advantageous match, someone with power to help protect her family.

She wouldn’t willfully give up protection.

As the minutes passed, I thought about every person I spoke to at the party. The family, yes, but I touched in with others, too. The Sinclairs were there, and some of the other marriage candidates who considered me their buddies. I think most of them secretly hoped she was announcing that she wanted to marry one ofthem. Like she might offer her final rose in front of everyone.

Could one of them have found out? Hurt her?

No, none of them are smart enough, nor skilled enough, to pull that off.

I kept returning to my chat with Mr. McGowan, the number inconsistency.

I called Willa, who answered on the third ring even though it was the middle of the night.

“How much was the McGowan contract for?” I asked.

“$430 million,” she said.

“You’re sure?”

“I wrote the contract, Nate. Yes, I’m sure.” Her annoyance was valid, but I couldn’t drop what the old man said.

“I need the passwords to Vanessa’s computer,” I said. “Oh, and access to the contracts. Something is wrong.”

After a moment of silence through the phone line, she acquiesced, too tired to fight me, and maybe even knowing that I was right. Something was wrong with all of this. From the moment they found the note, nothing was making sense.

I spent the rest of the night auditing old contracts with payments received. I’d compiled a list of twenty projects that were suspect, and as soon as the clock struck 8 AM, I called each of them in turn, pretending to be from the Morelli legal office, questioning if they’d be willing to remind us of some key details regarding their builds. I told them we had a new system in place and needed to make sure everything was transferred properly. Everyone was all too willing to comply.

Mary came in after I’d called three of them. She hadn’t come home in the night, and still wore her clothes from last night.

“Something is wrong,” I said.

“I know,” she said, and brought me another cup of coffee.

Ranger had been loyal, sleeping at my feet the entire night, no doubt having checked Vanessa’s bed and found it cold.

“What can I do?” Mary asked.

I explained the process to her and gave her a copy of the names and phone numbers to call. She took half. It became apparent that her style was much more abrupt than mine, stating her name and asking they share the numbers, no explanation given.

It took zero back and forth for them to comply.

With her help, we worked through the list and sure enough, twelve of the twenty calls indicated discrepancies between their contract and the contract Morelli Construction had on file.

We didn’t tell any of them any of this, but made eye contact every time the number was wrong, sometimes by tens of millions of dollars, hundreds in the case of McGowan.

“What the fuck is going on with these numbers?” Mary asked after we’d gone through the whole list and another ten contractsfor good measure. Willa and Sean were on their way with bagels by this point, so Mary and I took a break to shower (I needed it, horribly), and now have the anxious attention of Willa and Sean back in Vanessa’s office.

I’m nervous to voice my hypothesis, especially with Sean in the room, but I go on anyway, telling them about the conversation with McGowan, the contracts, the calls, all of it.

“If these numbers are correct, there’s a discrepancy of half a billion dollars from the last four years,” I explain.

Willa leans closer and Sean whistles.

“Like what, an accounting error?” Willa asks.

“Some accounting error,” Mary mutters.

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