Chapter 5 – The Gray-Haired Attorney

The door opened, and a gray-haired man in a charcoal suit entered carrying a second stack of documents under his arm. I recognized him from a company holiday party two years earlier — Carter Logistics’ longtime outside counsel, a man Ryan’s own father had hired decades ago and trusted without question.

He looked at me, then at the folder beneath my arm.

“Mrs. Carter,” he said, “would you like the board to review your evidence before Mr. Carter signs anything?”

Ryan’s smile disappeared entirely.

“What is this,” he said, not quite a question, already scanning the room for whoever had let this happen without his approval.

“I requested it,” I said. “Since some of what’s in this folder involves company funds, I thought your board should see it before any settlement gets finalized. I didn’t think you’d object, given how confident you seemed a moment ago.”

Ashley slowly removed her hand from Ryan’s.

The board representative, a woman I didn’t recognize who introduced herself simply as Ms. Whitfield, took a seat at the far end of the table without waiting to be invited. Beside her, a younger man with a laptop and a company badge identified himself as the outside financial auditor Carter Logistics retained annually for its shareholder reporting.

“Before we go any further,” the gray-haired attorney said, addressing the room rather than any one person in it, “I’d like to understand the nature of a discretionary transfer flagged in last quarter’s preliminary audit review. Six figures, routed through an LLC with no deliverables on file. Mr. Carter, were you aware of this transaction?”

Ryan’s jaw tightened. “That was a consulting arrangement. Standard vendor practice.”

“Standard vendor practice,” the auditor said, glancing up from his laptop for the first time, “doesn’t typically involve a single-signature emergency equity resolution for eight percent of company shares, filed the same month the LLC in question first appears in your discretionary account records.”