Chapter 4 - The Leak Inside My Company
I called my supervisor before sunrise Tuesday morning.
“Frank, I need to talk to you privately.”
He heard something in my voice.
“Come in.”
I arrived before most of the office.
Greg Wallace’s desk was empty.
Frank closed the conference room door behind us.
“What happened?”
I told him enough to make his face change.
I explained the forged documents.
The property scheme.
The missing financial information.
Then I showed him the photograph I had taken outside Teresa’s house.
Greg stood beside my cousin Mason.
Frank stared at it.
“How does he know your family?”
“That’s what I need to find out.”
Within twenty minutes, our company’s legal department was involved.
Then IT.
Then corporate security.
Greg was placed on immediate administrative leave before he even reached the building.
IT examined access logs.
What they found made me feel physically ill.
Greg had opened payroll files connected to me more than thirty times over six months.
He accessed direct-deposit records.
Tax withholding information.
Emergency contact forms.
My salary history.
Benefit elections.
Even the address of my primary bank.
There was no legitimate reason for him to view most of it.
Then they found downloads.
Two spreadsheets.
One PDF.
And a copy of an old employee identification document containing my signature.
There it was.
The signature my mother had needed to practice her forgery.
Frank slammed his palm against the table.
“I’m sorry, Connor.”
“This should never have happened.”
“Why would Greg risk his job for my mother?”
Corporate security had already found part of that answer.
Payments.
Bradley Family Holdings had transferred Greg seven thousand five hundred dollars over three months.
The payments were labeled consulting fees.
Greg wasn’t a consultant.
He was selling information.
Police questioned him that afternoon.
At first, he denied everything.
Then investigators showed him the transfers.
Greg changed his story.
He claimed Teresa had told him she was helping me organize estate planning.
He said he believed I wanted my financial information shared.
Nobody believed him.
Then Morales called me.
“He says your mother told him you were planning to divorce Amy.”
I almost laughed from disbelief.
“What?”
“She told Greg that Amy was trying to take your house.”
“That’s insane.”
“I know.”
“She told him she needed documentation to protect you.”
My mother had constructed an entire imaginary divorce to convince people that stealing from me was an act of protection.
That evening, Amy and I sat in our living room.
Frederick was finally feeling better.
He crawled across the rug toward a plastic fire truck.
The house was quiet.
No relatives.
No shouting.
No demands.
Amy watched our son.
Then she said something that stayed with me.
“I forgot our house could sound like this.”
“Like what?”
“Peaceful.”
I looked around.
Before Frederick was born, Amy and I had spent months renovating this place.
She chose the paint.
She picked the kitchen backsplash.
I built the shelves beside the fireplace myself.
This had been her home long before Teresa tried turning it into a family headquarters.
“I’m changing everything.”
Amy looked at me.
“Everything?”
“Locks.”
“Passwords.”
“Emergency contacts.”
“Who can pick Frederick up someday.”
“Who gets access to the house.”
“No family member walks through that door unless we both agree.”
Amy studied me.
“You mean that?”
“Yes.”
She nodded slowly.
Then her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
She looked at me before answering.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then her face drained of color.
I took the phone.
“Who is this?”
A distorted voice answered.
“You should stop digging.”
“Who are you?”
“You’ll lose more than a house.”
The call ended.
I immediately contacted Detective Morales.
He told us to save everything.
Half an hour later, an officer arrived.
As he examined the phone, I heard glass break downstairs.
I ran toward the kitchen.
The officer followed.
A brick lay on the floor surrounded by shattered glass.
Something was wrapped around it with a rubber band.
A photograph.
Amy holding Frederick outside our pediatrician’s office.
Taken two weeks earlier.
Someone had been watching my wife and son before the birthday party ever happened.
May you like
On the back of the photograph were six handwritten words.
You should have left when warned.
