Chapter 8 - The Family Meeting
Andre refused to leave Jordan alone that night.
Not because he distrusted his son.
Because he no longer trusted the situation.
The attorney advised against rushing to the warehouse before morning. If Calvin had already removed documents, going in late could create arguments about who altered what.
So they stayed home.
For once, nobody pretended everything was normal.
Rachel ordered pizza.
Nobody ate much.
At nine, Andre turned off the television and asked both of them to sit at the dining table.
“No more secrets tonight.”
Rachel crossed her arms.
“That includes you.”
“It includes all of us.”
Jordan looked uncomfortable.
Andre placed the default notice in the center.
“I guaranteed the business credit line three years ago. I renewed it last year. I did not tell your mother.”
Jordan listened.
Andre continued.
“Three months ago, I moved seventy-four thousand dollars from our savings into the business without discussing it with her.”
Rachel spoke next.
“When I found out, I moved thirty-two thousand dollars into a separate account because I was afraid your father might use the rest.”
Jordan looked between them.
“So both of you hid money.”
“Yes,” Rachel said.
Andre nodded.
“Yes.”
“That’s... messed up.”
Rachel almost laughed.
“Accurate.”
Andre did not.
“I also knew for about three weeks that the company records did not make sense. I was investigating quietly.”
“Because you thought Calvin did it?” Jordan asked.
“No.”
Andre’s answer was immediate.
“I thought someone had made accounting mistakes.”
Jordan looked skeptical.
Rachel looked sad.
Andre noticed both.
“I didn’t want it to be Calvin.”
“That isn’t the same as not thinking it,” Rachel said.
Andre exhaled.
“Fair.”
Jordan turned toward Rachel.
“What else did you hide?”
Rachel did not like the question.
Then she remembered Andre’s rule.
No secrets tonight.
“I copied documents from your father’s email months ago.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought something was wrong.”
“Did you tell him?”
“No.”
Jordan leaned back.
“So nobody in this house trusts anybody.”
The sentence silenced them.
Andre finally said, “That’s what we’re fixing.”
“How?”
“By starting now.”
Jordan looked at the router visible on the shelf near the living room.
His expression became bitterly amused.
“Funny.”
Rachel followed his gaze.
“What?”
“You shut off my internet because I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to do.”
Rachel waited.
Jordan looked at both parents.
“Meanwhile, you two were hiding almost four hundred thousand dollars worth of problems.”
Andre rubbed his mouth.
Jordan immediately added, “I’m not saying what I did was okay.”
“It wasn’t,” Rachel said.
“I know.”
Andre nodded.
“But your point is fair.”
Jordan seemed surprised to hear that.
Andre leaned forward.
“Respect isn’t supposed to work one direction.”
Rachel looked at him.
“That woman deserves respect,” Andre had told Jordan the night before.
Now Andre looked at Rachel.
“So does the truth.”
Rachel’s eyes softened.
The family meeting lasted until almost eleven.
Jordan admitted he had been gaming more because he was afraid.
He also admitted he had lied about being at Miles’s house.
Rachel added another week to his grounding.
Jordan accepted it.
Andre confessed he had considered asking Rachel to use the house’s equity but had never completed an application.
Rachel stiffened.
“You considered it?”
“Yes.”
“Without telling me?”
“I was trying to decide whether I could even ask.”
Rachel stood and walked to the sink.
Jordan watched the tension return.
Andre did not chase her.
“I didn’t do it.”
“That is not the comforting statement you think it is.”
“I know.”
Jordan rubbed his forehead.
“Can I say something?”
Both parents looked at him.
“Maybe none of us should make money decisions alone for a while.”
Rachel stared.
Andre laughed quietly.
“What?”
“Our grounded sixteen-year-old just created a better financial policy than we did.”
Rachel finally smiled.
It was small.
But real.
The next morning, Andre met attorney Laura Greene outside Warehouse 17.
A forensic records specialist accompanied her.
Rachel came too.
Jordan went to school under strict instructions to stay there.
The lock had been changed overnight.
Andre stared at it.
“That isn’t our lock.”
Laura photographed it.
“Do not touch it.”
The building manager arrived with the master records.
According to the system, Calvin had accessed the property at 5:42 that morning.
Andre’s stomach tightened.
A locksmith opened the unit.
The cardboard archive box was gone.
So were two filing cabinet drawers.
Rachel whispered, “He knows.”
Andre entered carefully.
On the floor beneath the table lay one sheet of paper.
Perhaps Calvin had dropped it while removing the box.
Laura picked it up with gloved hands.
It was an old payroll report.
Year: eight years earlier.
Near the bottom was employee number 419.
Andre’s father.
Beside the number, someone had handwritten:
AUTHORIZED TRANSFER — $25,000
Andre stared.
“My father never took distributions that way.”
Laura pointed toward the bottom.
“Look at the authorization initials.”
Andre did.
Two letters.
CH.
Calvin Hayes.
Rachel looked at Andre.
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Eight months had just become eight years.
And the brother Andre had spent his life protecting might have been stealing from their father before Andre ever took control of the company.
