Chapter 3 - THE ACCOUNT SHE WASN'T SUPPOSED TO SEE
Three months earlier, Madison had opened the wrong envelope.
That was her story.
A bank statement arrived at home addressed to Marcus.
She usually left business mail unopened.
That afternoon she was sorting household bills, distracted by Lily asking for juice, and tore it open without reading the name.
The account was not familiar.
RIDGELINE CONSULTING RESERVE.
Balance:
$2.84 million.
Madison assumed it was a company account.
Then she saw transfers.
Reed Development Group.
$225,000.
$310,000.
$185,000.
$440,000.
Over nine months.
All outgoing.
She photographed the statement and put it back.
Then asked Marcus casually over dinner:
“What’s Ridgeline?”
He froze for half a second.
Then answered:
“A subcontractor.”
Not true.
At least not entirely.
Madison searched public filings.
Ridgeline Consulting LLC existed.
Registered agent:
Peter Lawson.
Marcus’s chief financial officer.
Madison searched deeper.
Property records showed Lawson’s wife owned a lake house purchased six months earlier for $1.7 million.
Maybe unrelated.
Maybe not.
Then Madison found an old email on the family tablet.
Marcus to Peter:
Keep Ridgeline off the consolidated report until Q4. Dad’s estate review doesn’t need another complication.
Madison stared.
She did not know what it meant.
She did know Marcus had lied.
Then she did something he later called betrayal.
She called Travis.
Why him?
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Because Travis’s younger sister, Nicole Cole, was a forensic accountant.
And because Madison did not trust anyone connected to Reed Development.
