Chapter 2 - The Job My Father Tried to Take Away From Me
My father fired me at 7:13 the next morning.
He didn't call me into his office.
He didn't even bother to tell me himself.
A payroll notification arrived on my phone.
EMPLOYMENT STATUS CHANGE: TERMINATED.
No explanation.
No meeting.
Just a system-generated message.
I stared at it from the passenger seat of a bus while rain blurred the windows.
Then my phone rang.
My father's assistant.
“Mr. Whitmore wants the company laptop returned.”
“I'm using my own.”
“Then any company files must be transferred immediately.”
“I know.”
“There is also an instruction to surrender your building access card.”
“Understood.”
The call ended.
I sat there staring at the city.
Nine years.
One notification.
I should have been furious.
Instead, I felt something strange.
Relief.
Not because losing my job was easy.
It wasn't.
I had a student loan payment.
Rent.
My mother's old medical debts, which my father had promised to help with before conveniently forgetting.
I had groceries to buy.
Bills waiting.
But for the first time in nine years, I didn't have to pretend that being treated like disposable labor was normal.
My phone rang again.
Unknown number.
I nearly ignored it.
“Hello?”
“Ms. Whitmore.”
I knew the voice.
Dominic.
I sat straighter.
“Yes?”
“Did your father fire you?”
“How did you know?”
“He called me.”
My stomach tightened.
“What did he say?”
“That you were unstable.”
I laughed once.
“Of course.”
“He also said you had accessed confidential files without authorization.”
“I had access because I was doing my job.”
“I know.”
The confidence in his voice made me pause.
“How?”
“Because the files you touched contain errors my own auditors identified three months ago.”
I said nothing.
“Why did you correct them?”
“Because they were wrong.”
“Exactly.”
There was a pause.
“Come to my office.”
“I don't work for you.”
“I didn't ask you to.”
I frowned.
“Then why?”
“Because yesterday you said something no one else at that table understood.”
“What?”
“You knew where the money was leaking.”
He disconnected before I could answer.
Dominic's office occupied the top floors of a converted warehouse in the harbor district.
It was nothing like my father's headquarters.
No marble lobby.
No excessive portraits.
No gold.
Everything was dark wood, steel, glass, and clean lines.
A security guard scanned me.
A woman escorted me upstairs.
Dominic stood by the windows overlooking the harbor.
He turned when I entered.
“You came.”
“I wanted to hear what you had to say.”
“You're no longer employed by Whitmore.”
“I noticed.”
He gestured toward a chair.
I sat.
A file waited on the desk.
My name was on it.
My employment history.
My salary.
Internal performance reviews.
Even handwritten comments from my father.
I picked it up.
“This is confidential.”
“Yes.”
“How did you get it?”
“My people are very good.”
I looked at him.
“And my father?”
“Charles made a mistake.”
“What mistake?”
“He thought firing you would stop me from investigating Whitmore Freight.”
I swallowed.
“Investigating what?”
Dominic placed a document in front of me.
A shipping route.
Several container numbers were highlighted.
“These shipments appear legitimate.”
“They are.”
“Are you sure?”
I studied them.
Then I noticed a pattern.
“Container prefixes.”
“What about them?”
“They don't match the declared origin ports.”
Dominic leaned forward.
“Explain.”
“Three shipments were listed as originating in Savannah. But the container series corresponds to equipment registered through a Virginia leasing company.”
He watched me.
“So?”
“That company was acquired by a shell entity last year.”
His eyes sharpened.
“Which one?”
I wrote the name on a pad.
Northbridge Maritime Services.
Dominic went still.
“Why?”
“Because it appears on another file.”
“Where?”
I pulled out my phone.
I'd taken photographs of several spreadsheets before returning my company laptop.
I found one.
“Insurance payments.”
Dominic looked at the screen.
“How much?”
“Two million over six months.”
“Paid by Whitmore?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
I zoomed in.
A subsidiary.
“Harbor Crest Holdings.”
Dominic stared at the name.
Then he leaned back.
“That company belongs to my cousin.”
I froze.
“Then why is it paying your father's insurer?”
“I don't know.”
He stood.
“Neither did I.”
He walked to a cabinet and poured two coffees.
He gave one to me.
I took it.
“You think my father is stealing from you.”
“No.”
“What then?”
“I think someone is stealing from both of us.”
That sentence changed the entire situation.
Dominic opened another folder.
Inside were photographs.
People.
Warehouses.
Vehicles.
Bank records.
A network.
At the center was a man I'd seen once before at Whitmore Freight.
Our compliance director.
Gerald Pike.
I pointed.
“He handles customs certifications.”
Dominic nodded.
“Does your father trust him?”
“Completely.”
“That may be the problem.”
I frowned.
“Gerald has worked there fifteen years.”
“So did you.”
I looked at him.
He continued.
“Loyalty and opportunity are not the same thing.”
I closed the folder.
“What do you want from me?”
“I want you to audit Whitmore Freight.”
“I don't work there anymore.”
“I know.”
“Then how?”
“You have knowledge no outside consultant could replicate.”
“You want me to investigate my own father?”
“I want you to investigate the company.”
“And if the evidence implicates him?”
Dominic's expression became serious.
“You show me the evidence.”
I shook my head.
“And if there is nothing?”
“Then you walk away.”
I studied him.
“Why trust me?”
“I don't.”
That surprised me.
“I trust what you've demonstrated.”
He paused.
“There's a difference.”
For some reason, that mattered.
He wasn't pretending to understand me.
He was simply giving me a chance to prove myself.
“What is the pay?”
His eyebrows rose.
“You negotiate before accepting?”
“I spent nine years underpaid. I'm not making it ten.”
A faint smile appeared.
“How much?”
I named a figure.
He immediately doubled it.
My mouth opened.
“That is excessive.”
“No.”
“It is.”
“Claire, you prevented my company from entering a disastrous merger based on flawed logistics assumptions.”
“I corrected one model.”
“You saw something six executives missed.”
He slid a contract across the desk.
“Three-month consulting agreement. Full access. Independent authority.”
I read it.
Then reached the final clause.
I would report directly to Dominic.
No one else.
I signed.
That afternoon, I returned to Whitmore Freight.
Not as an employee.
As Dominic Vale's independent consultant.
My father's face when he saw me was unforgettable.
“You're not authorized to be here.”
I placed the contract on his desk.
“I am now.”
His face turned red.
“You're working for him?”
“Yes.”
“You have no idea what you're doing.”
I smiled.
“You told me that for nine years.”
He stared.
“What are you looking for?”
“The truth.”
He laughed.
“You'll destroy this family.”
“No.”
I looked directly at him.
“I'm trying to find out who already did.”
I spent six hours reviewing records.
At 8:40 p.m., I found something.
A wire transfer.
$4.2 million.
Whitmore Freight to a European account.
Authorized under my father's digital signature.
I stared.
The transfer had happened eighteen months ago.
My father had told me we were struggling to meet payroll that week.
He had blamed fuel costs.
But the money had never left the company legitimately.
It had been routed through three holding companies.
Then I noticed the receiving account.
A private bank in Monaco.
Beneficiary:
D. Vale.
I froze.
Dominic.
I called him.
He answered immediately.
“Tell me.”
“You received 4.2 million from Whitmore.”
Silence.
“What?”
I sent him the file.
He opened it.
“It was not my account.”
“But it has your name.”
“That's not my account.”
“Then whose is it?”
His answer came slowly.
“I think someone has been building a false trail.”
“Why?”
“So if the money is discovered, it points to me.”
I stared at the screen.
Dominic added:
“Claire.”
“Yes?”
“Leave the building.”
“Why?”
“Because if someone forged my identity inside Whitmore Freight…”
A sound came from the hallway.
Footsteps.
Then the lights went out.
Dominic's voice came through the phone.
“Claire?”
May you like
Someone whispered behind me.
“You should have stayed in the storage room.”
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