Chapter 5 - The Missing Money
We met Mason Blake at Carter Ridge forty minutes later.
The property sat twenty minutes outside Charlotte: a century-old brick textile office Grant had planned to convert into a forty-room boutique hotel.
When he first showed it to me, windows were broken, ivy covered one wall, and pigeons lived in what would become the lobby.
I had loved his vision.
Exposed brick.
Local art.
A rooftop bar.
A place that belonged to the city instead of another chain hotel designed by a focus group.
I invested because I believed in Grant.
That sentence became more expensive every hour.
Mason waited inside the unfinished lobby wearing work boots and a canvas jacket.
He looked uncomfortable when he saw our parents behind me.
“I wasn’t expecting an audience.”
“Neither was I this morning,” I said.
Grant pushed past me.
“You had no right calling Olivia.”
Mason laughed.
“I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“About what?”
“The same thing I asked you Thursday.”
Grant glanced at me.
Mason noticed.
“So she doesn’t know.”
“Know what?”
Mason took a folder from his backpack.
“Four weeks ago, I reconciled vendor deposits before the bank inspection. We’re short roughly one hundred forty-two thousand dollars compared with the approved draw schedule.”
Tom said, “Short how?”
“Payments marked released that vendors say they never received.”
Grant stepped between us.
“Mason is a project manager, not an accountant.”
Mason’s jaw clenched.
“No, but I can read an invoice.”
I held out my hand.
He gave me the folder.
Three vendors had signed letters stating their deposits remained outstanding.
Yet Carter Ridge’s internal ledger showed the money as paid.
“Who controls transfers?” I asked.
Mason looked at Grant.
Grant said, “Our bookkeeper.”
“Name?”
“Leslie.”
“Does Leslie initiate wires?”
“She prepares them.”
“Who approves?”
Silence.
Mason said, “Grant.”
I flipped pages.
One payment caught my eye.
$48,000 to Northline Procurement.
I looked at Olivia.
She began shaking her head.
“I never got that.”
Grant turned.
“You did.”
“No.”
“The March transfer.”
“I received twenty-two in March.”
“Check your records.”
“I know my records.”
For the first time, Olivia sounded angry rather than ashamed.
Mason pointed to the ledger.
“Northline received three payments according to this. Twenty-two, forty-eight, and thirty-one-five.”
Olivia whispered, “I got twenty-two and thirty-one-five.”
Everyone looked at Grant.
He said, “Then the ledger is wrong.”
Mason laughed.
“Funny. That’s what I’ve been saying.”
Grant lunged toward him verbally, not physically.
“You’re fired.”
“No,” I said.
Grant turned.
“You don’t run operations.”
“I own forty percent.”
“This is my project.”
Rachel’s voice echoed in my memory.
Fiduciary duty.
I said, “Not yours alone.”
We moved into the temporary site office.
Mason opened the accounting platform on his laptop.
The payment record showed a transaction number.
But unlike normal wires, it had no bank confirmation attached.
“Who entered it?” I asked.
Mason clicked audit history.
The username appeared.
G.Carter.admin
Grant leaned against the desk.
“Bookkeeping correction.”
“To make it look like Olivia received money she didn’t?”
He did not answer.
I felt Olivia watching me.
Then she whispered, “There’s another account.”
Grant’s head snapped toward her.
“Olivia.”
“What account?”
She swallowed.
“He told me it was for project reserves.”
Grant stepped forward.
“Stop.”
She looked at him.
Seven months of betrayal suddenly gave way to something uglier.
Grant had promised Olivia something.
And she had just realized promises made by a man betraying his wife might not be reliable.
“What account?” I repeated.
Olivia took out her phone.
She opened an email.
Three months earlier Grant had sent her wiring instructions for certain furniture refunds.
The beneficiary was CR Strategic Holdings LLC.
Mason frowned.
“I’ve never heard of that entity.”
Neither had I.
Tom hadn’t either.
Grant said, “It’s a holding company.”
“Owned by whom?”
Grant said nothing.
I searched the North Carolina Secretary of State database.
There it was.
CR Strategic Holdings LLC.
Formed nine months earlier.
Registered agent: Grant Carter.
Member information was not public.
But the mailing address was.
A condominium complex ten minutes from downtown.
Olivia stared at the address.
“What?”
I looked at her.
“You recognize it.”
Her voice became tiny.
“Grant told me he rented a unit there for business meetings.”
My stomach tightened.
“You’ve been there?”
She nodded.
“How many times?”
“Three.”
Grant said, “This is ridiculous.”
I looked at him.
“Who pays the rent?”
He did not answer.
Mason searched the project records.
Two minutes later he found a recurring monthly expense categorized as “off-site design storage.”
$3,850.
My sister stared at Grant.
“That was a storage unit?”
Grant said nothing.
Olivia started crying again.
Not because she had betrayed me.
Because she was beginning to understand she had been betrayed too.
I should have enjoyed that.
I didn’t.
Mason closed the laptop.
“There’s one more thing.”
He opened a scanned PDF.
It was a capital certification submitted to First Piedmont Bank.
At the bottom was my name.
Meredith Carter.
Under it was a signature.
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My signature.
Except I had never signed it.
