Samuel Voss answered Daniel’s call on the second ring.
“Daniel.”
His voice sounded exactly as it always had.
Calm.
Measured.
Almost paternal.
Daniel remembered being twelve years old and listening to Samuel explain why his father fired an executive for lying about expenses.
“Business survives bad judgment,” Samuel had told him. “It does not survive concealed truth.”
Now Daniel stood in the dining room at Westlake staring at an account restored through Samuel’s department using the credentials of a dead man.
“I need to see you.”
“Of course.”
“Today.”
A pause.
“Is this about Bellmont House?”
Daniel glanced at Richard.
Samuel already knew.
“How did you hear about that?”
“People talk.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
“Your return to headquarters wasn’t exactly invisible.”
Daniel looked at the timestamp on the fraudulent authorization.
“Where are you?”
“At home.”
“I’ll come to you.”
Another pause.
“Very well.”
Daniel ended the call.
Richard said, “You’re not going alone.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
Claire crossed her arms.
“You shouldn’t go at all.”
“I need to see his reaction.”
“You have documents.”
“I have documents carrying dead people’s signatures.”
“That’s enough to call police.”
“It’s enough to start asking questions.”
Claire looked furious.
“You’re doing what Anna did.”
Daniel met her eyes.
“What does that mean?”
“She kept digging because she thought she could handle everything herself.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“It looks exactly like it.”
Daniel wanted to argue.
He couldn’t.
Claire pointed toward the laptop.
“You have a daughter.”
The words stopped him.
“Don’t turn this into some test of whether you’re brave enough.”
“I’m not.”
“Then act like Sophie needs you alive.”
Daniel looked away.
He saw Sophie at the kitchen counter asking whether problems hid under other problems.
Claire was right.
He had spent three years telling himself Anna’s secrecy had protected him.
Perhaps it had also isolated her.
He turned to Richard.
“Contact federal investigators.”
Richard nodded.
“Financial crimes?”
“And public corruption if anything points outside the company.”
“You think it might?”
“I don’t know what to think anymore.”
Daniel pointed toward the drive.
“Give them copies. Not originals.”
Claire exhaled with relief.
“Thank you.”
Daniel looked at her.
“I’m still seeing Samuel.”
She threw up her hands.
Richard almost smiled.
By noon, investigators had received preliminary financial records and copies of the forged documents.
Daniel insisted the transfer happen through outside counsel rather than Bellmont infrastructure.
At 12:40, he and two security agents drove to Samuel Voss’s home.
Richard followed in another car.
Samuel lived in a stone house overlooking a narrow lake.
Daniel had attended Christmas dinners there as a boy.
His father had drunk bourbon beside Samuel’s fireplace while the two men argued about expansion plans.
Anna had once danced with Daniel in that same living room after too much champagne.
Memory made the place feel more dangerous, not less.
Samuel opened the door himself.
He was seventy-three, silver-haired, straight-backed, dressed in a dark sweater and pressed trousers.
His eyes moved immediately to the security agents.
“That serious?”
Daniel entered.
“You tell me.”
Samuel led them to the study.
Richard remained near the door.
Daniel did not sit.
Samuel did.
“What happened?”
Daniel placed a printed copy of the FOUNDERS OFFICE authorization on the desk.
Samuel read it.
His expression barely changed.
Then he removed his glasses.
“Where did you get this?”
“Answer the question it creates.”
“I didn’t create this.”
“Your department approved it.”
“My former department.”
“You were running it then.”
“Yes.”
“Was this your authorization?”
“No.”
Daniel watched him closely.
Samuel appeared offended.
Not frightened.
“Someone used your office code.”
“So it seems.”
“Using my dead father’s credentials.”
Samuel looked again.
“I can see that.”
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“I’m old, Daniel. Surprise becomes inefficient.”
“Try anyway.”
Samuel’s gaze sharpened.
“You came here believing I forged your father’s authorization?”
“I came here because Anna left records.”
That changed him.
Only slightly.
But Daniel saw it.
Samuel sat back.
“What records?”
“You knew she was investigating Bellmont.”
Samuel did not answer.
“Samuel.”
“Yes.”
Richard stepped away from the door.
Daniel said, “How?”
“She came to me.”
“When?”
“Approximately three weeks before she died.”
Daniel’s anger arrived so quickly he almost lost his voice.
“You never told me.”
“She asked me not to.”
“She died.”
“I know.”
“You stood beside me at her funeral.”
Samuel lowered his eyes.
“Yes.”
“You watched me bury her knowing she had been investigating fraud inside my company.”
“I did.”
Daniel slammed his palm on the desk.
Richard moved instinctively closer.
Samuel remained seated.
“Why?”
“Because Anna asked me to protect you.”
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
“She believed the people involved would disappear if they knew you were aware.”
“So you let me believe her death was unrelated.”
Samuel met his eyes.
“I believed it was unrelated.”
Daniel stared at him.
“You’re sure?”
“No.”
The answer was worse.
Samuel continued.
“At the time, police concluded she lost control of the vehicle during heavy rain.”
“I know the report.”
“I had no evidence to contradict it.”
“And now?”
Samuel stood slowly.
“Now you’re showing me an authorization issued through an office I controlled.”
Daniel stepped toward him.
“Who had access?”
Samuel walked to a cabinet.
Richard tensed.
Samuel stopped.
“There are files in here.”
Daniel nodded.
Richard opened the cabinet instead.
Inside were old binders.
Samuel directed him to one labeled TRUST ADMINISTRATION.
They placed it on the desk.
Samuel flipped through printed access rosters.
Four names appeared.
Samuel Voss.
Gregory Shaw.
Marianne Cole.
Thomas Bell.
Daniel frowned.
“Marianne Cole?”
Samuel nodded.
“Vanessa’s mother.”
Daniel looked at Richard.
Neither man spoke.
“Vanessa’s mother worked for Bellmont?”
“For almost twenty years.”
“Why isn’t that in Vanessa’s personnel records?”
“She used her married name when she applied.”
“Which was?”
“Vanessa Hart.”
Daniel remembered seeing that name in older employment files.
“When did she change it?”
“After her divorce.”
Daniel felt another layer open beneath the investigation.
“What did Marianne do?”
“Senior trust administrator.”
“She had access to my father’s credentials?”
“Emergency legacy records, yes.”
“Where is she?”
Samuel’s expression shifted.
“She died four years ago.”
Daniel almost laughed.
Another dead person.
Richard said, “Cause?”
“Cancer.”
“So she couldn’t have restored the account three years ago.”
“No.”
“Who inherited her credentials?”
“No one should have.”
Daniel turned the page.
Gregory’s name sat directly beneath hers.
“What about him?”
Samuel’s jaw tightened.
“Gregory was her supervisor.”
Daniel looked up.
“That matters.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
Samuel met his eyes.
“Because until today, I didn’t know Vanessa Cole had any connection to the problem.”
Daniel sat for the first time.
“Anna did.”
Samuel looked sharply at him.
“What do you mean?”
“She had photographs of Gregory meeting Vanessa before Vanessa officially joined Bellmont House.”
Samuel became very still.
“When?”
“More than three years ago.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because Gregory told Anna he had never met Vanessa.”
Daniel felt the pieces shift again.
“Anna asked him?”
“She asked all of us about a woman she had seen leaving an executive conference room after hours.”
“What woman?”
Samuel looked toward the window.
“Vanessa.”
Daniel’s pulse increased.
“This started before Bellmont House.”
“Yes.”
“What was she doing here?”
Samuel shook his head.
“I didn’t know.”
“Anna did?”
“She suspected Vanessa was helping Gregory move money through hospitality vendors.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“You knew that and said nothing?”
“I knew Anna suspected it. She had not proved it.”
“She’s dead.”
Samuel’s composure cracked.
“So is my best friend.”
Daniel stopped.
Samuel’s voice roughened.
“Your father built Bellmont with me. Do you think I enjoyed watching his son disappear into grief while the company rotted around him?”
“You could have told me.”
“And if Anna’s death was connected to what she found?”
“You decided for me.”
“Yes.”
Samuel’s answer carried no apology.
“I decided a grieving widower raising a five-year-old did not need to become the next target.”
Daniel stood again.
“You had no right.”
“No.”
For the first time, Samuel sounded tired.
“But I would make the same choice if I believed it kept you and Sophie alive.”
The name landed heavily.
“You don’t get to use my daughter to justify this.”
“I’m not.”
Samuel opened another folder.
“I’m telling you why I stayed quiet.”
He removed a photograph.
It showed a black sedan parked across the street from Westlake House.
Daniel recognized the date printed at the bottom.
Three days after Anna’s funeral.
“What is this?”
“Someone followed you.”
Daniel took the photograph.
“Who?”
“I never identified them.”
Samuel produced two more.
The same vehicle outside Sophie’s preschool.
Daniel’s stomach turned.
“You had Sophie watched?”
“No. I had you protected because someone else was watching you.”
Daniel looked toward Richard.
Richard shook his head.
He had never seen the photographs.
Samuel said, “The car disappeared after six weeks.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Daniel stared at the image of the preschool.
Three years earlier, while he was barely sleeping, strangers may have been tracking his daughter.
“Why show me now?”
“Because if the financial system has started moving again, whoever was behind it may believe you’re a threat again.”
Richard said, “You said started moving again.”
Samuel looked at him.
“What?”
“You didn’t say if. You said the system has started moving again.”
Silence.
Daniel turned.
“Samuel.”
The older man slowly sat down.
“I found another transfer last month.”
Daniel stared.
“You’re still monitoring it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Anna asked me to.”
That was the first answer Daniel had not expected.
Samuel opened a desk drawer and removed a sealed envelope.
Anna’s handwriting was on the front.
For Samuel.
Daniel recognized it instantly.
Samuel handed it to him.
“She gave me this three weeks before she died.”
Daniel did not open it.
“What does it say?”
“Among other things, it asked me to watch Northbridge and three associated entities if she failed to stop the transfers.”
“You’ve known about Northbridge for three years?”
“I’ve known the name.”
“Why didn’t you shut it down?”
“Because every time we traced one account, another replaced it.”
“Who is receiving the money?”
“That is what Anna was trying to discover.”
Daniel looked at him.
“And what have you discovered?”
Samuel stood.
“Not enough.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
Samuel walked to a wall safe.
After entering a code, he removed a thin file.
He opened it.
Inside were photographs, invoices, property records, and wire transfers.
Richard examined the first page.
Then froze.
“Daniel.”
Daniel took it.
Northbridge Advisory had transferred funds to a private holding company.
That company had purchased a warehouse.
The warehouse had been sold.
The proceeds eventually entered an investment trust.
Daniel followed the ownership chain.
At the bottom was a beneficiary name.
Sophie Mercer.
He stopped breathing.
Richard looked at Samuel.
“What the hell is this?”
Samuel said, “That is why Anna became frightened.”
Daniel stared at his daughter’s name.
“She was five.”
“Yes.”
“Someone was moving stolen money into a trust for my child?”
“It appears so.”
“Why?”
Samuel shook his head.
“We never determined that.”
Daniel looked again.
A date appeared beside the trust.
It had been established six days before Anna died.
Whoever had built the scheme had not simply stolen from Bellmont.
They had tied the stolen money directly to Daniel’s daughter.
And if that connection ever became public, it could make the Mercer family appear to be the beneficiary of the entire fraud.
Daniel finally understood Anna’s deepest fear.
Someone had not been trying merely to take Bellmont away from him.
They had been constructing evidence that could make it look as though he had stolen from his own company.
Click here to continue reading: PART 7: The Trust in Sophie’s Name Reveals a Trap Built to Survive for Years, and Daniel Learns Gregory Has Suddenly Disappeared
A Rain-Soaked Father Takes His Daughter to Dinner and Learns Why So Many Guests Have Been Complaining About Bellmont House
Part 6 of 44
