Chapter 6 - The Secret Behind My Name
I called Mara from the parking lot.
Olivia stood a few feet away, holding my soaked jacket.
I kept my voice low.
“Tell me exactly what you found.”
Mara didn't waste time.
“The second payroll account was opened eleven months ago. It receives transfers from Whitmore Motors and sends money to several outside entities.”
“Whose authorization?”
“Olivia Whitmore's.”
“Are you certain?”
“Her name appears on the electronic authorization package. We're still verifying whether the signature is authentic.”
I looked at Olivia.
She was watching me.
“Anything else?”
Mara hesitated.
“There's a pledge involving Olivia's ownership interest.”
My stomach tightened.
“What kind of pledge?”
“A document purporting to authorize her shares as additional security for the company's borrowing arrangements.”
I closed my eyes.
Grant had been pressuring Olivia to surrender her voting rights.
Now someone had apparently tried to use her ownership as collateral.
If the documents were fraudulent, the consequences could extend far beyond missing wages.
“Preserve everything,” I said.
“Already done.”
“And Mara?”
“Yes?”
“Prepare a meeting with Elena.”
Elena Brooks was Pierce Capital's outside corporate attorney.
Mara understood immediately.
“You're going to tell Olivia?”
“I have to.”
I ended the call.
Then I turned around.
Olivia was still watching me.
“Nolan?”
“Yes?”
“Who was that?”
I took a slow breath.
“Someone I work with.”
She frowned.
“At the dealership?”
“No.”
Her expression changed.
“What do you mean?”
I looked toward the gate.
Grant was no longer visible.
But I knew he was somewhere inside, probably congratulating himself for humiliating the man he believed had nothing.
“Olivia, there's something I should have told you before we got close.”
She didn't speak.
“My name is Nolan Pierce.”
“I know your name.”
“Pierce Capital.”
She stared at me.
Then her eyes widened.
“The investment company?”
I nodded.
She took a step back.
“That's impossible.”
“I'm the founder and principal owner.”
For several seconds, she simply looked at me.
Then she laughed once.
Not because it was funny.
Because she didn't know how else to respond.
“You're telling me that the man who has been washing cars at my family's dealership owns the firm that's supposed to rescue it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I explained the financial investigation.
The employee complaints.
The missing wages.
The temporary assignment.
Everything I could responsibly disclose.
She listened without interrupting.
When I finished, she looked down at the work jacket in her hands.
“So all of this was an act?”
“No.”
“You pretended to be poor.”
“I took the job to understand what was happening.”
“You let me believe you needed that paycheck.”
I swallowed.
“Yes.”
She shook her head slowly.
“And you let me believe you had nothing to do with our financing.”
“I did.”
Her eyes glistened.
“Was any of it real?”
The question hurt more than Grant's bucket ever could.
“Every moment I spent with you was real.”
She looked away.
“You don't get to decide that for both of us.”
I nodded.
“That's fair.”
Silence stretched between us.
Then she asked the question I had been dreading.
“Did you start talking to me because of my shares?”
“No.”
“Did you kiss me because you wanted information about Grant?”
“Never.”
She watched my face.
I didn't look away.
Finally, she whispered, “I want to believe you.”
“You don't have to decide today.”
She took another breath.
“Then why did you look at me that way after your phone rang?”
I hesitated.
“Because there's something else you need to know.”
I told her about the second payroll account.
About the missing employee funds.
About the authorization bearing her signature.
Her face slowly lost its color.
“That's impossible.”
“That's why we need to investigate.”
“I never authorized another payroll account.”
“I believe you.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I'm not sure yet. But I know someone has been trying to take away your ability to question the company.”
Her expression hardened.
“Grant.”
“Possibly.”
“And Mom?”
“I don't know.”
She stared toward the dealership.
Then she handed me my jacket.
“Show me.”
That evening, we met Mara and Elena Brooks in a private conference room at Pierce Capital.
Olivia sat across from me.
There was a distance between us that hadn't existed that morning.
I didn't blame her.
Mara placed the account records on the table.
“The authorization was submitted eleven months ago,” she explained.
Olivia examined the signature.
“That looks like mine.”
Elena leaned forward.
“Do you recognize the document?”
“No.”
“Do you recall giving anyone permission to open a payroll account?”
“Absolutely not.”
Mara displayed another document.
“This appears to authorize a pledge of your shares in connection with the company's debt.”
Olivia's eyes widened.
“Grant told me he needed my voting rights for a refinancing.”
“When did he first ask?” Elena said.
“About two months ago.”
Elena looked at Mara.
“The purported pledge is older than that.”
I watched Olivia's expression change.
Fear slowly gave way to understanding.
“Then he wasn't asking for my permission,” she whispered.
“He was asking me to approve something someone had already done.”
Nobody answered immediately.
Then Olivia leaned closer to the screen.
“Wait.”
She pointed at the signature.
“Can you enlarge that?”
Mara did.
Olivia studied it for several seconds.
Then she covered her mouth.
“Nolan?”
“Yes?”
“I know where that signature came from.”
Elena straightened.
“Where?”
“After Dad died, I signed the estate inventory in front of our family's attorney.”
She pointed to a tiny flourish beneath the final letter of her last name.
“I made a mistake with the pen. It left this little mark.”
The same mark appeared on the bank authorization.
“The signature wasn't written for this account,” Olivia whispered.
“Someone copied it from the estate papers.”
I felt my jaw tighten.
“Who had access to those papers?”
Olivia looked at me.
“Grant.”
She paused.
“And my mother.”
Then Mara opened the final page of the pledge agreement.
Her expression changed.
“Nolan, we have another problem.”
She rotated the screen.
Beneath Olivia's alleged signature was a provision granting a creditor rights over her one-third ownership interest if Whitmore Motors defaulted.
May you like
And the creditor's name was printed clearly at the top.
CEDARPOINT HOLDINGS.
