Chapter 6 - THE FIRE CLAIM
The warehouse fire happened six months earlier.
Electrical fault.
Officially accidental.
Daniel’s company claimed:
equipment losses,
materials,
unfinished custom fixtures,
leased machinery.
Northline Mutual paid an initial advance.
Then Elliot Crane noticed discrepancies.
Some equipment listed as destroyed had GPS activity after the fire.
Some materials invoices appeared duplicated.
A supplier denied delivering quantities claimed.
Not proof Daniel set the fire.
No evidence of arson.
The issue was claim inflation.
Then Elliot found a second inventory ledger.
Created by Daniel’s operations manager.
The real quantities.
Difference:
approximately $840,000.
If Northline proved intentional inflation, Daniel faced fraud exposure and repayment demands.
Then Lorraine’s connection.
The invoice pattern was more sophisticated than Claire expected.
Bennett Procurement Services did not simply invent fake invoices.
It used real purchase orders.
Then replacement-cost adjustments.
Then expedited-delivery surcharges.
Then storage fees.
Each addition looked plausible alone.
Together, some invoices became nearly forty percent higher than underlying supplier charges.
Lorraine's defense would later say:
replacement after a fire costs more,
rush orders cost more,
inventory reconstruction is messy.
All true.
The fraud question depended on whether the markup was honestly disclosed.
Several emails suggested it was not.
One from Lorraine:
DON'T SEND NORTHLINE THE ORIGINAL VENDOR BACKUP.
Another:
USE THE CLEAN SET.
Clean set.
Harris underlined the phrase.
Claire did too.
She was not just Daniel’s mother.
She was part owner of a vendor company called Bennett Procurement Services.
BPS supplied materials to Daniel’s warehouse.
Several disputed invoices came through BPS.
Lorraine personally benefited.
Claire stared.
“That’s why she needed me to confess.”
Maybe.
If Daniel were identified as the driver who struck the insurance investigator days before a scheduled fraud meeting, police would examine motive.
Then everything could open.
Warehouse claim.
Vendor invoices.
Lorraine.
If Claire took the driving blame, the collision looked unrelated to Daniel’s dispute with Elliot.
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Lorraine was not only protecting her son.
She was protecting herself.
