Chapter 5 - THE MONEY THAT HAD BEEN DESTROYED
Detective Price arranged independent examination of the bill. It was genuine currency, not a counterfeit. Paper age and wear were consistent with circulation.
The stranger fact lay in Commonwealth’s records. The entire stolen bundle was also listed as destroyed.
Six weeks before the theft, the bank reported water contamination in a cash-storage room. Two million four hundred thousand dollars in damaged notes were transported for official destruction. The Federal Reserve’s receipt confirmed a shipment by weight, not individual serial.
After the theft, Commonwealth claimed Rachel substituted ordinary paper for currency during that disposal and later stole the surviving cash from the vault.
Rachel’s internal memo told a different story. She warned that damaged notes had been counted twice: once as destroyed and again as vault inventory. The duplicate accounting allowed real cash to leave the bank while ledgers remained balanced.
Her memo was marked resolved by Nolan.
Melissa located a scanned copy in a backup folder. Minutes later, her computer locked and internal audit officers entered the branch.
They accused her of accessing restricted files unrelated to teller duties and removing possible stolen property from bank premises. Nolan placed her on paid suspension.
“Give me the five,” he said again.
“The police have it.”
For the first time, his professional expression disappeared.
That evening, Melissa returned home to find her apartment searched. Nothing valuable was missing. The birthday card lay open on her bed.
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Someone had taken only the envelope that carried no postal marks.
On her kitchen table sat a child’s drawing of a bank counter. A little boy stood before Window Six holding a square black bag.
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