Chapter 6 - The Name in the Ledger.
.By morning, the mansion no longer felt like Vivian's private kingdom.
Security controlled the doors.
Claire had arranged for independent accountants to preserve the financial files.
Helena had changed into clean clothes borrowed from one of the staff members and sat beside Adrian in the library.
The Northbridge ledger was projected onto a wall.
Adrian studied every line associated with his initials.
The earliest transaction dated back eleven years, when he had been twenty-two and still in graduate school.
He had never had signing authority over the foundation then.
"These are impossible," he said.
Claire agreed.
"Which means the initials may not represent you, or someone used your identity."
Helena suddenly remembered something.
Three weeks before her disappearance, she had been helping Adrian organize boxes from his father's old office.
Inside one box was a blue accounting binder marked NORTHBRIDGE.
She had opened it because she thought it contained tax documents.
Several pages showed transfers to companies she did not recognize.
She photographed two pages and planned to ask Adrian about them later.
"Where are the photos?" Claire asked.
Helena gave a bitter smile.
"On the phone Owen took."
Adrian stood so quickly his chair moved backward.
"We need that phone."
Claire asked security to search the east wing inventory for electronics.
Vivian had spent the night in a guest suite under observation after agreeing not to leave while her attorney traveled to the property.
When confronted about Northbridge, she dismissed it as an old family fund.
"Your father handled those accounts," she told Adrian.
"My father has been dead for six years."
"Then perhaps he left you more problems than you knew."
Adrian noticed that Vivian never denied knowing about the ledger.
Claire noticed it too.
An hour later, security found a locked drawer in Owen's former workroom.
Inside were seven phones.
Helena recognized hers immediately by the small scratch beside the camera lens.
The battery was dead.
The forensic specialist created a copy of its contents after confirming the device belonged to Helena.
Most of her messages had been deleted.
The photographs from the blue binder remained in a hidden backup folder.
Claire compared them with the digital ledger.
The numbers matched.
But one detail did not.
The original paper pages used full names instead of initials.
Beside several transfers labeled A.C. in the spreadsheet was a different name on the photographed ledger.
Arthur Cole.
Adrian's father.
Adrian sat back slowly.
Vivian had altered the digital version to make the transactions appear connected to Adrian rather than Arthur.
"She was building a second story," Helena said.
Claire nodded.
"One in which Adrian becomes responsible if anyone audits the foundation."
That explained the forged separation agreement.
If Helena exposed the ledger, Vivian could describe her as an angry estranged spouse attacking Adrian.
It also explained why Vivian kept Helena close instead of simply forcing her out of the mansion.
She needed to know what Helena remembered and whether she had copied anything.
Adrian felt sick as the logic became clear.
Vivian had not only isolated Helena.
She had turned Helena into insurance.
A knock came at the library door.
One of the officers entered carrying a small blue binder.
"We found this behind a false panel in the records room."
Helena stood.
"That's it."
Adrian opened the binder.
Several pages had been removed.
A handwritten note was tucked inside the back cover.
The handwriting belonged to his father.
Adrian recognized it instantly.
The note contained only one sentence.
May you like
Vivian knows what happened to the Harbor account.
Before Adrian could read further, the lights in the mansion went out.
