Chapter 5 - Forty-Eight RoomsHarbor House stood three blocks from the foundation’s polished downtown offices. Before the board meeting, Claire took me there.
The front entrance was locked. Plywood covered two ground-floor windows. A notice on the door said the building was awaiting renovations.
“I used to bring Emma here when she was little,” Claire said. “Daniel helped serve dinner. He knew every child’s name by the second visit.”
A woman in a blue work coat came along the sidewalk carrying groceries. She stopped when she recognized Claire.
“Ava,” Claire said.
Ava had applied for a room the winter the foundation claimed to have rented forty-eight temporary beds. She and her son had instead spent six weeks moving between relatives’ couches and a motel she could barely afford.
“Someone told me the beds were full,” she said. “Then I heard they had money for a hotel program. I thought I’d missed the forms.”
“You didn’t,” Claire said.
Ava looked past her at me. “Is he the man whose name is on the building?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Then maybe you can tell me where my son was supposed to sleep.”
I looked at the boarded windows. The invoice Daniel had hidden in Unit 17 had charged nearly half a million dollars for beds people could not use.
“I’m trying to find out,” I said. “I should have done it earlier.”
Ava did not comfort me. She gave Claire her phone number and walked on.
I thought about her question all the way to the boardroom.
Celeste sat at the head of the table, one wrist resting on a stack of folders. Gideon stood near the door. Elliot occupied a seat two places away, his injured wrist in a brace. There were stitches beside his eyebrow.
When Claire entered, Celeste’s eyes narrowed. She had expected me to bring a lawyer. She had not expected the woman whose name she had spent fourteen months ruining.
Leah asked that Claire be allowed to speak before any vote. Two board members agreed. A third, an accountant named Warren, said the foundation should suspend the meeting until police finished collecting records.
Celeste smiled at him. “We have obligations to our donors today.”
She distributed copies of emails supposedly sent from Claire’s foundation account, along with transfer approvals bearing my electronic signature.
“These are the documents Daniel was investigating,” she said. “Claire had access to both his office and the payment system. Jonathan approved the accounts he believed were legitimate.”
I examined one approval. I recognized the electronic signature. I had clicked through a batch of payments Celeste presented to me the month after Daniel died. I could picture her standing beside my desk, telling me which invoices were urgent.
“I signed this,” I said.
Celeste inclined her head. “Exactly.”
Leah asked where the money had gone. Elliot pushed a folder toward her.
“The account names are in there.”
“They’re names of vendors,” Claire said. “I want the names of the people who own them.”
Elliot stared at the table.
Celeste answered for him. “You can request that information through counsel.”
“I did,” Claire said. “Three times. Your office refused.”
One board member glanced at Celeste. Another opened the folder and started turning pages.
Leah laid a copy of the Unit 17 invoice on the table. She explained the count of rooms at Harbor House and offered Ava’s contact details to an independent investigator.
“This is only one payment,” Leah said. “It’s enough to show why the board should preserve the full accounts and commission an outside review.”
Celeste lifted the page. “A loose invoice from a storage locker. Where are the originals Daniel claimed to have put there?”
“We’re looking for them,” I said.
“Then I suggest we wait for facts.”
“You called this meeting before we had them.”
For the first time, Warren nodded at me.
Outside the boardroom, reporters gathered beyond the glass doors. Celeste knew they were there. She kept glancing at the clock.
During a recess, Elliot caught me by the elevators.
“I need to talk to Claire,” he said.
“Talk to the detective.”
“I can’t until I have my own lawyer.”
“Then call one.”
Elliot glanced toward the boardroom. He took a small flash drive from his coat pocket and pressed it into my hand.
“Daniel made a copy of the transfer list. I took the case from Unit 17 because Celeste said she’d destroy everything if the police got there first.”
“Why are you giving me this?”
“Because she’s started saying I did all of it.”
His voice shook. I had known Elliot for seven years and had never heard fear in it.
“Give it to Torres,” he said. “Don’t open it here.”
Gideon emerged from the boardroom. Elliot walked away before I could reply.
Leah took the drive from me and called Torres. She would let a forensic examiner make the first copy. Elliot’s explanation was a lead, not a reason to trust him.
When the meeting resumed, Warren proposed hiring outside auditors and postponing the vote to remove me. The motion passed by one vote.
Celeste’s smile remained in place.
At her press conference, she announced the audit as her own recommendation. She spoke warmly of Daniel and said she hoped the investigation would finally give his family peace.
Claire and I watched from the hall. Halfway through the questions, a reporter asked Celeste why Ben Harker’s garage had photos of Daniel driving a foundation car on the day of his death.
Celeste paused.
“Daniel’s accident is a separate matter,” she said.
The reporter continued. “Police have reopened it.”
Celeste looked through the glass and saw us.
For one second, the expression she had worn when the vase broke returned.
Then my phone buzzed.
A new message showed the front of Claire’s house. Emma and Rosa were visible through the kitchen window.
Call off the audit.
I showed Claire and Leah. Claire was already dialing Rosa.
A man answered Rosa’s phone.
May you like
“Mrs. Mercer,” he said, “you should come home.”
The call ended.
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