Chapter 7 - Three Million Dollars Missing
Nobody sat down after Tandy said it.
Three million dollars had a way of making chairs feel irrelevant.
Cullen closed the conference room door.
“Start at the beginning.”
Tandy looked at her attorney.
He nodded once.
She folded her hands in front of her as if trying to keep them from shaking.
“Eighteen months ago, Grant created a capital reserve inside Strickland Family Properties. Officially it was for major building repairs—roofing, masonry, electrical upgrades, historic preservation. The board approved three-point-six million over two fiscal years.”
Cullen knew about the reserve.
He had voted for it as a minority member of the property company.
“What happened to it?”
“Most of it is gone.”
“How?”
“Consulting contracts. Survey work. Site preparation. Project management. A dozen invoices.”
“Fake invoices?”
“Some real. Some inflated. Some for work that never happened.”
“Where did the money go?”
Tandy swallowed.
“Into entities tied to Mesa Verde Development.”
Jolie frowned.
“The company buying the building.”
“Yes.”
Cullen’s voice hardened.
“Why would our reserve money go to a future buyer?”
Tandy looked at him.
“Because Grant wasn’t just negotiating with Mesa Verde. He invested with them.”
The room went silent.
Cullen shook his head slowly.
“No.”
“He put personal money into one of their developments outside Austin. The project collapsed. Lawsuits, overruns, lender problems. Grant lost more than he could cover.”
“So he stole from the family company?”
Tandy winced.
“He called it a bridge.”
Cullen laughed once, without humor.
“Of course he did.”
“He believed the Sixth Street sale would close before the annual audit. The sale proceeds would refill the reserve. Nobody would ever know.”
Jolie looked toward the historic windows beyond the conference room wall.
“But the facade protections blocked the sale.”
“Yes.”
“And Hale already knew that.”
“Yes.”
Cullen stepped closer.
“When did the idea to damage the glass begin?”
Tandy looked down.
“Grant asked Hale for options. Brodie said if enough original storefront material was deemed unsalvageable, the preservation restrictions might be modified. Not automatically. But it would create an argument.”
“An argument worth eleven-point-eight million dollars,” Jolie said.
Tandy nodded.
Cullen’s face became almost expressionless.
“And you went along with it.”
“I went along with the redevelopment.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Tandy’s eyes filled.
“At first, Grant told me Hale would document existing deterioration. He said the windows were already failing and the city had no right to trap the company inside a building that couldn’t meet modern needs.”
“When did you know they were creating damage?”
Tandy did not answer immediately.
Cullen’s voice dropped.
“When?”
“Before the first mark.”
The betrayal hit harder when spoken plainly.
Jolie watched Cullen absorb it.
He did not shout.
He did not slam a hand on the table.
He simply stepped back as though Tandy had physically pushed him.
“You knew an innocent contractor would be blamed.”
“No. Not at first.”
“Who did you think would be blamed?”
Tandy looked at Jolie.
“I thought it would be called chemical deterioration.”
“Then why were my service days circled?” Jolie asked.
Tandy’s face tightened.
“That came later.”
“Later when?”
“When the first mark didn’t create enough concern. Dr. Pritchard—the consultant Hale was using—said one small defect wouldn’t justify anything. Grant wanted a pattern. Brodie said the easiest pattern was to make it look like cleaning damage.”
Jolie’s expression went completely still.
“So you chose me.”
Tandy whispered, “Yes.”
“Because I work alone.”
“Yes.”
“Because I don’t have a corporate lawyer.”
Tandy said nothing.
“Say it.”
“Yes.”
“Because you thought I couldn’t fight back.”
Tandy’s eyes closed.
“Yes.”
Jolie nodded once.
Not because she accepted the apology.
Because now the truth had a shape.
Cullen’s voice was rough.
“The anonymous emails?”
“Brodie.”
“The fake insurance claims?”
“High Mesa. Grant gave them access to vendor records, including Jolie’s certificate of insurance.”
“The brick?”
Tandy shook her head quickly.
“I didn’t know about that. I swear. When I heard about the truck, I called Grant and told him I was done.”
“Is that when Posie saw you in his truck?” Jolie asked.
Tandy looked startled.
“Yes.”
“The red folder?”
Tandy went pale.
“That was my insurance.”
Cullen frowned.
“What insurance?”
“Copies. Payment records. Emails. Notes I kept because I realized Grant was setting this up so everyone else carried the risk.”
“Where is it?”
Tandy’s silence answered before she did.
“Grant took it.”
Jolie’s jaw tightened.
“How?”
“I told him I wanted out. I told him I had records. He said we needed to talk in person. I got into his truck because I was afraid my phone was being monitored.”
“What happened?” Cullen asked.
“He said I was panicking and making things worse. He asked to see the folder. I gave it to him.”
Cullen stared at her.
“You gave him the evidence?”
“I thought he was going to look at it.”
“And then?”
“He locked the doors.”
Jolie’s expression sharpened.
Tandy raised a hand.
“He didn’t threaten me physically. He said if I made accusations, he’d tell the board I designed the entire scheme. He reminded me the money went to Calvin’s LLC. He said I would go to prison and he would call me a rogue employee.”
“Which is exactly what he started doing this morning,” Cullen said.
Tandy nodded.
“He kept the folder.”
“Do copies exist?”
“One.”
Cullen looked at her.
“Where?”
Tandy hesitated.
“My sister has a flash drive.”
“Brodie Hale’s wife?” Jolie asked.
“Yes.”
Cullen stared at her as if she had announced she stored gasoline beside a furnace.
“Your sister is married to the vendor involved in the sabotage.”
“I know.”
“And you gave her your backup?”
“She doesn’t know what’s on it. I told her it was tax records.”
“Do you trust her?”
“With my life.”
Jolie’s voice was quiet.
“Do you trust her more than she trusts her husband?”
Tandy stopped.
That was the real question.
Tandy’s attorney asked for a break before they called Kendra.
Tandy went into the hallway and leaned against the wall.
Jolie followed, not because she wanted to comfort her, but because one question still bothered her.
“The fake claims,” Jolie said. “How did they expect that to work?”
Tandy wiped beneath one eye.
“High Mesa would submit them as notice-only losses. Enough to create a claims history and make your carrier nervous. Grant said nobody would prosecute over paperwork if the actual property owner settled privately.”
“So the point wasn’t to collect from my insurance.”
“Not primarily.”
“It was to make me look uninsurable.”
Tandy nodded.
Jolie felt sick.
Losing one account hurt.
Losing the ability to obtain commercial insurance would have ended Cantrell Window Care entirely.
No hospital bid.
No larger properties.
Possibly no business.
“You weren’t trying to make me pay for the glass,” Jolie said.
Tandy’s face crumpled.
“You were trying to erase me.”
“I know what it looks like.”
“No. Don’t do that.”
Tandy looked up.
“Don’t say what it looks like. Say what it was.”
A long silence.
Then Tandy whispered, “We were trying to make you too risky to fight back.”
Jolie nodded.
There.
The truth again.
Ugly, but clean.
“Thank you,” she said.
Tandy looked confused.
“For what?”
“For finally using the right words.”
Jolie turned to go back inside.
“Jolie.”
She stopped.
Tandy’s voice shook.
“I saw your policy renewal date in the vendor file. I knew December first mattered.”
Jolie closed her eyes for one second.
That detail hurt more than she expected.
Because it meant the pressure had not been random.
Someone had looked at her life on paper and found the exact place where it was weakest.
She turned back.
“You don’t get to help me carry that guilt.”
Tandy flinched.
“You carry yours. I’ll carry what happens next.”
Then Jolie walked back into the attorney’s office.
They called Kendra Hale from the attorney’s office.
She did not answer.
They called again.
Nothing.
Tandy texted.
Please call me. It’s about the red folder.
Three minutes later, Kendra replied.
What red folder?
Tandy’s face drained.
Cullen looked at the screen.
“Call her again.”
This time Kendra answered.
“What is going on?” she whispered.
Tandy put the phone on speaker.
“Kendra, the flash drive I gave you. Where is it?”
A pause.
“The tax thing?”
“Yes.”
“I put it in the blue recipe tin like you said.”
“Is it there now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Check.”
They heard footsteps.
A cabinet opening.
Metal rattling.
Then silence.
“Kendra?”
“It’s gone.”
Tandy gripped the table.
“Did Brodie know about it?”
“I never told him.”
“Could he have found it?”
“He was looking for the title to the trailer last weekend. He went through the kitchen files.”
Tandy closed her eyes.
Kendra’s voice changed.
“Tandy, what did you give me?”
Before Tandy could answer, a man spoke in the background.
“Kendra? Who are you talking to?”
Brodie Hale.
The call disconnected.
Tandy stared at the dead screen.
“Call her back,” Cullen said.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Jolie felt a chill.
“Send police.”
Cullen’s attorney was already dialing.
Twenty-six minutes later, officers reached the Hale residence outside Lubbock.
Kendra was fine.
So was Brodie.
He claimed he had no idea what anyone was talking about.
The flash drive was not found.
By late afternoon, investigators had enough for subpoenas and preservation orders but not enough to recover what Grant had taken.
Tandy gave a full sworn statement.
She turned over her phone.
She resigned from Strickland effective immediately.
Before leaving, she stopped in front of Jolie.
“I know sorry isn’t enough.”
“It isn’t.”
“I know.”
Jolie looked at her for a long time.
“Why did you do it?”
Tandy’s eyes reddened.
“Because Grant told me Cullen would sell eventually anyway. He said I could either help shape the future or get left behind by it. He promised me COO after the move. More money. More authority.”
“And you believed him.”
“I wanted to.”
Jolie’s voice softened, but only slightly.
“Wanting a better life doesn’t excuse choosing somebody else to crush under it.”
Tandy nodded.
“No.”
She left.
Cullen stood at the window after everyone else had gone.
Jolie came beside him.
For several minutes they watched traffic move along Sixth Street.
Finally Cullen said, “I keep replaying every conversation I had with Grant this year.”
“That won’t change what he did.”
“I should’ve seen it.”
“Why?”
“He was my uncle.”
“That usually makes people harder to see, not easier.”
Cullen glanced at her.
“You sound like you know.”
Jolie looked out at the street.
“My ex-husband was good at becoming whatever the room required.”
Cullen had never heard her mention Posie’s father.
He waited.
Jolie continued on her own.
“Dean wasn’t violent. He wasn’t cruel. He just lied the way some people breathe. Small things first. Where he was. What he spent. Why the rent was short. Then bigger things. Credit cards in my name. A truck loan. One day I realized I had spent six years judging every fact by whether it matched the man I wanted him to be.”
“What happened?”
“I left when Posie was eighteen months old.”
“Does he see her?”
“No.”
Cullen did not ask why.
Jolie’s voice was steady.
“He moved to Nevada. Sends a birthday card when he remembers. I stopped building expectations for her out of somebody else’s promises.”
Cullen looked down.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It taught me something useful.”
“What?”
“Love is not evidence.”
The words settled between them.
Cullen looked at his uncle’s office across the street in the property company building.
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
That evening, Rena Ortiz found the next break.
The traffic-camera system had captured Grant’s black Ford leaving Tandy’s neighborhood after the red-folder meeting.
Forty-two minutes later, another city camera recorded the same truck entering a private storage facility on Western Street.
Grant Strickland rented two units there.
Investigators applied for a warrant.
But before it could be issued, the facility manager called Cullen’s attorney with alarming news.
Grant had arrived twenty minutes earlier.
May you like
He was emptying one of the units.
And among the boxes loaded into his truck was a red document folder.
