Chapter 4 - MARA HAD NEVER STOLEN THE MONEYSix years earlier, Hartwell—no, my company was Cole Restoration & Infrastructure—had nearly collapsed after $940,000 vanished through vendor accounts.
Mara was controller and co-founder.
Douglas Vale was CFO.
Records pointed to Mara.
Vendor approvals.
Digital signatures.
Account transfers.
Then she disappeared.
Her car was found at Logan Airport.
Police believed she fled.
I believed it too.
I hated myself for that later.
What nobody knew:
Mara had discovered Douglas running false emergency subcontractor invoices.
He used small shell vendors to skim money from insurance-restoration projects.
Mara confronted him.
According to letters recovered after her death, Douglas threatened to frame her.
She copied records.
Then disappeared voluntarily because she believed she was pregnant and feared Douglas had contacts capable of finding her.
Did he threaten her life?
Evidence was less clear.
Mara wrote:
Douglas said Nathan would believe the books before he believed me.
That sentence destroyed me.
Because he was right.
I believed the books.
Not her.
Mara went to Vermont.
Changed her surname socially, not illegally.
Worked remote accounting jobs.
Raised Sophie.
Why didn’t she contact me?
Fear.
Shame.
And one devastating misunderstanding.
Douglas sent her an email from an address resembling mine.
Do not contact me again. If the child is mine, I want no part of it.
I had never sent that.
Mara believed I did.
For nearly five years.
Then she discovered the email metadata discrepancy while organizing records during cancer treatment.
She realized Douglas had forged it.
That was when she began trying to reach me.
Her messages never arrived.
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Why?
Because Claire intercepted at least two.
