Chapter 5 - What Charlotte Took
Charlotte disappeared from Minneapolis Monday night.
By Tuesday morning, Gavin had reported a missing company laptop.
Not to the police.
To SwiftFreight’s internal security director.
That detail reached Crestview because the preservation notice required SwiftFreight to report missing devices connected to senior employees.
The laptop belonged to Charlotte.
According to Gavin, it contained confidential public relations material.
According to Mason, it contained nothing financially sensitive.
According to the metadata recovered from SwiftFreight’s server, both men were lying.
Charlotte had accessed a restricted finance directory eleven times during the previous month.
Rachel placed the access log in front of me.
“Why would the PR director have these permissions?”
“She shouldn’t.”
“Who approved them?”
Rachel pushed another page toward me.
Mason Gable.
I stared at the surname.
Then I looked up.
“Mason’s last name is Reed.”
“Professionally.”
Rachel’s expression told me to keep going.
She slid a birth record across the table.
Mason Reed had been born Mason Gable.
Charlotte Gable was his younger half-sister.
I read the page twice.
“No one at SwiftFreight knows?”
“Some people may.”
“Gavin?”
“We don’t know.”
I thought of every family dinner Mason had attended with Bridget.
Every holiday.
Every company gala.
Charlotte had always been introduced as the brilliant young PR director Gavin personally recruited.
Never once had Mason acknowledged that they shared a father.
Nathan frowned.
“Why hide the relationship?”
Rachel answered.
“Conflict rules.”
Crestview’s diligence questionnaire specifically required disclosure of family relationships among senior officers, related-party vendors, and executives with access to financial information.
Mason had answered none.
“There’s more,” Rachel said.
Charlotte’s company email showed payments to a consulting firm called Gable Strategic Communications.
Almost $4.7 million over two years.
The firm’s registered owner was their father.
I felt sick.
“So Mason steered company money to his family.”
“That appears possible.”
“And Charlotte was covering it.”
“Maybe.”
Nathan leaned forward.
“Or helping build the structure.”
That afternoon, Gavin appeared at my hotel.
Security called before allowing him upstairs.
Nathan wanted me to refuse.
I agreed to meet Gavin in a private conference room with hotel security outside.
He looked terrible.
His collar was open.
His eyes were bloodshot.
For the first time in six years, Gavin Pierce looked like a man whose confidence had finally become heavier than he could carry.
“You knew Mason and Charlotte were related?”
I asked immediately.
His face changed.
That was my answer.
“For how long?”
“Sabrina.”
“How long?”
“Charlotte told me after we started seeing each other.”
I stared at him.
“So you knew.”
“It wasn’t relevant.”
“It was relevant to Crestview.”
“Mason said legal had cleared everything.”
“Did legal know?”
Gavin looked away.
I understood.
“No.”
He ran both hands through his hair.
“This is getting out of control.”
“No, Gavin.”
I spoke quietly.
“It was already out of control.”
He stared at me.
“You think I deserved this?”
“You’re asking the wrong question.”
“What question should I ask?”
May you like
I leaned closer.
“How much of your company has Mason been stealing while you were busy destroying your marriage?”
