Chapter 4 - The Counter-Strike
I stood in Tabitha Reyes’ office an hour later, my body shaking violently as I explained Julian Vane’s threat.
Tabitha sat behind her desk, listening quietly, her expression darkening with every word. When I finished, she picked up the $30,000 cashier's check, examined it, and tossed it into her wastebasket.
"Julian Vane just made the single biggest mistake of his life," Tabitha said, her voice terrifyingly quiet.
"Tabitha, he has friends in the family court system!" I sobbed, clutching my head in my hands. "If he tries to take Junia from me—"
"He can't touch Junia, Zora," Tabitha interrupted firmly, standing up and coming around the desk to hold my hands. "Do you know why? Because Julian Vane isn't just Georgette’s husband. He’s the chief financial officer for G-Style Boutique Enterprises."
I looked up, wiping tears from my eyes. "What does that mean?"
"It means," Tabitha smiled grimly, "that by offering you a $30,000 bribe from an account registered under his corporate firm to settle a private trust lawsuit, he just committed federal witness tampering and illegal diversion of corporate funds."
Tabitha picked up her desk phone and dialed a ten-digit number.
"Who are you calling?" I asked.
"Detective Marcus Vance at the State Financial Crimes Unit," Tabitha replied smoothly. "Marcus is an old law school colleague of mine. And he loves nothing more than catching arrogant corporate accountants committing extortion."
Ten minutes later, Detective Vance was on speakerphone.
After Tabitha outlined Julian’s threat and presented the serial number from the $30,000 cashier's check, Detective Vance let out a low whistle.
"That check was drawn directly from G-Style Boutique’s commercial payroll reserve account," Detective Vance confirmed over the speaker. "Which means Julian Vane used company operating capital to attempt to bribe a plaintiff in an ongoing trust fraud case. That’s a Class 3 felony in this state."
"Can we obtain a warrant for the boutique’s full accounting servers, Marcus?" Tabitha asked.
"Not just a warrant," Detective Vance replied. "I'm sending a forensic auditing team to G-Style Boutique at 9:00 AM tomorrow morning. If Julian Vane has been cooking the books to hide Ottoline’s stolen trust money, he’s going to be in handcuffs before lunch."
I fell back into the chair, a massive breath of relief rushing out of my lungs.
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The monsters who had tried to intimidate me into silence using my child as a weapon had just handed us the keys to their destruction.
"Zora," Tabitha said, looking at me with immense pride. "Go home. Hug your daughter. Get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow, the hunter becomes the hunted."
