Chapter 5 - An Accountant’s Audit
A normal woman might have spent the next twenty-four hours crying into a pillow, mourning the death of her romance.
I spent it in an air-conditioned room surrounded by dual monitors, three highlighters, and two pots of black coffee.
When you spend ten years auditing commercial accounts, you learn that people who commit financial deceit rarely stop at one crime. Fraud is not an isolated event; it is an addiction. A person who will lie to their bride about thirty-two thousand dollars in credit card debt and a bankrupt boutique will cut corners everywhere they can.
At 8:00 AM on Wednesday, I hired Marcus Vance—no relation to Walter, but a top-tier forensic family law attorney recommended by my firm’s managing partner.
“An annulment is difficult in California after the vows are solemnized,” Marcus told me over the phone, reviewing the PDFs I had emailed him. “The courts prefer divorce. But here? You’ve got documentation of undisclosed pre-marital liabilities exceeding seventy thousand dollars, intentional concealment of an active commercial lawsuit, and evidence of coercion within forty-eight hours of the wedding. We can file for nullity based on fraud under Section 2210(d). If he fights it, we transition to immediate dissolution with an ex-parte order freezing all joint financial entanglements.”
“File it today,” I said.
“I’ll have him served before five,” Marcus replied. “Now, Charlotte... what about the physical property? Did you leave anything of value at the Chula Vista house?”
My heart stopped.
The gold coins.
The twelve American Gold Eagles my parents had given me were not in a safety deposit box at the bank. I had intended to put them in the vault on Monday, but after the disastrous dinner with Walter Vance on Sunday, I had left them hidden inside the false bottom of my leather cosmetic train case—which was sitting on the high shelf of the guest bedroom closet in the Chula Vista house.
My stomach plummeted. “Marcus, I have personal property at the house. Inherited gold. Value roughly twenty-eight thousand dollars.”
“Do you have proof of purchase and serial numbers?”
“Yes. My father kept the original dealer invoices from the bullion exchange in Phoenix, complete with the dates and mint marks.”
“Go get them,” Marcus said, his voice tightening. “Take a police escort. Do not go there alone. If they realize an annulment is coming, assets have a funny way of evaporating.”
I hung up, grabbed my keys, and immediately drove to the Chula Vista police precinct to request a ‘civil standby’ for property retrieval.
While waiting for an available patrol officer, my phone buzzed with an incoming email. It was an internal memo from my managing director at Pacific Builders Supply, marked *Confidential / For Distribution to Senior Management.*
The subject line made my breath catch:
*Vendor Audit: Crestline Electrical – Irregularities in Commercial Invoicing.*
I opened the attachment with shaking fingers.
Pacific Builders Supply purchased roughly four million dollars in commercial electrical switchgear and industrial breakers from Crestline Electrical annually. The primary account manager on the Crestline side for the past eighteen months had been none other than Brandon Ruiz.
The memo outlined a discrepancy flagged by our warehouse intake system in National City: forty-five commercial power transfer switches, valued at $1,200 each, had been billed and paid for over the last two quarters, but the physical delivery manifests were signed off using an illegible digital stamp rather than an authorized warehouse supervisor’s badge.
The total missing inventory totaled fifty-four thousand dollars.
My mind raced. Fifty-four thousand dollars.
Almost the exact amount Hannah needed to settle her boutique’s lease default and keep the landlord from filing the public judgment.
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Brandon hadn't just lied to me. He hadn't just tried to shake down my inheritance. He had stolen from my employer.
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