Chapter 10 - The Secret Buried in My Own Files"WARREN PIKE WAS ALREADY IN YOUR COMPANY'S FILES BEFORE GRANT INTRODUCED YOU TO HIM."
Nadia stood beside my desk, pointing toward the report displayed on my monitor.
I read the name again.
Warren Pike.
Five years earlier, my company had helped investigate questionable investment transactions involving a private advisory business.
The investigation had been commissioned by attorneys representing several investors.
Warren had appeared in the records as a consultant associated with one of the intermediary companies.
Our assignment hadn't been to decide whether Warren committed a crime.
It had been to trace payments and identify discrepancies.
But the report had raised significant concerns.
Transactions routed through multiple related entities.
Promised investments that didn't match the underlying records.
Fees paid to intermediaries without clear documentation of services.
The similarities to Northstar were impossible to ignore.
"How did I not remember this?" I asked.
Nadia considered the question.
"Because Warren wasn't the central figure. And we handle dozens of matters every year."
She was right.
The original investigation had involved several companies and a complicated transaction structure.
Warren's name appeared in supporting records.
He hadn't been the public face of the operation.
I leaned back.
"Does Grant know about this report?"
"Someone accessed it during the compromised session."
"That doesn't prove he read it."
"No. But it means someone had access to information that might have concerned Warren."
I looked at the report again.
It was the sort of document that could become important evidence.
It was also confidential.
We couldn't simply publish it to defend ourselves.
I called Helena.
Within an hour, she joined us in the conference room.
We discussed the old case, the confidentiality obligations surrounding it, and the possibility that Warren had been aware of my firm's prior work.
"Simone, I want to be careful here," Helena said.
"Meaning?"
"We shouldn't assume the old case proves the current allegations. But the overlap is important enough to give the investigators."
I nodded.
"Could Warren have known who I was before Grant introduced us?"
"Possibly."
I thought back to the first time I'd met Warren.
It had been at a dinner party years earlier.
Grant had introduced him as a financial consultant.
Warren had smiled and said he admired women who built successful companies.
At the time, I'd considered the compliment harmless.
Then he'd asked about our firm's client base.
Our annual revenue.
Our plans for expansion.
I'd answered politely but avoided disclosing sensitive information.
Now I wondered whether the questions had been casual at all.
"Helena, what happens if he copied that report?"
"We need to investigate the access and notify the relevant client representatives. We also need to determine whether any confidential information was improperly used."
I nodded.
We arranged those steps.
Then I did something I should have done much earlier.
I went home and opened a box of old photographs.
The box contained pictures from the early years of my marriage.
Our wedding.
Family vacations.
Holiday dinners.
Grant smiling beside me at professional events.
I had avoided looking through them after the divorce.
The memories hurt too much.
But now I wasn't searching for memories.
I was searching for details.
I found a photograph from the first year of our marriage.
Grant stood beside me at a company anniversary celebration.
Patricia was smiling broadly.
Warren stood in the background.
I stared at the picture.
He'd been part of our social circle much longer than I'd realized.
Then I found another photograph.
It showed Grant shaking hands with a man at a charity fundraiser.
Warren again.
The photograph had been taken shortly after Grant and I started dating.
I examined the date printed on the back.
Something about it bothered me.
Grant had always claimed he'd met Warren through a consulting project several years into our marriage.
Yet the photograph suggested they knew each other before the wedding.
I placed it beside the others.
Perhaps the explanation was innocent.
Perhaps Grant had simply forgotten when they met.
But the accumulation of discrepancies was becoming difficult to dismiss.
The following morning, my office received an unpleasant surprise.
One of our affected clients forwarded an anonymous email.
The message claimed that unless certain financial questions were dropped, private information about the client's business would be circulated.
It referenced material similar to information in the accessed client file.
My stomach tightened.
Now the breach wasn't merely theoretical.
Someone appeared willing to use confidential information as leverage.
I immediately sent the message to Helena and Adrian Foster.
We preserved the original email and advised the client not to engage with the sender.
Helena contacted the appropriate authorities.
I felt sick.
For years, I'd believed that the greatest danger in my marriage was losing my sense of self.
Now the consequences were reaching people who had never met Grant.
People who had simply hired my company and expected their records to remain secure.
That afternoon, I walked through our office.
Everyone was working quietly.
Tess was preparing client correspondence.
Daniel was reviewing an unrelated fraud case.
Nadia was speaking with the independent examiner.
Twelve employees.
Twelve people who had trusted me to build something stable.
I stopped outside the conference room.
For a brief moment, I considered selling the company.
Taking my money.
Leaving Ottawa.
Starting somewhere Grant couldn't find me.
The thought was tempting.
I had enough savings to live comfortably.
I could close the door on the entire nightmare.
Then I remembered Helen McLeod.
The way she'd held her husband's photograph.
The way she'd asked whether I'd known about Northstar.
And the way she'd apologized for my suffering while facing her own.
I couldn't fix every mistake other people made.
But I could refuse to abandon the people whose trust had been exploited.
I returned to my office and called Nadia.
"I've made a decision."
She looked up.
"What kind of decision?"
"We're going to cooperate fully with the investigation. We're going to commission an independent review of every affected system. And we're going to correct the public record."
Nadia smiled faintly.
"That sounds like you."
I shook my head.
"No. The old me would have tried to handle everything quietly so nobody felt uncomfortable."
"And the new you?"
"The new me understands that protecting people sometimes means making the truth impossible to ignore."
That evening, Helena called with an update.
The publication had amended its article to include our denial and the existence of disputed documents.
Several clients had agreed to continue working with us while the investigation proceeded.
The bank had confirmed that the attempted transfer remained blocked.
The external review was progressing.
For the first time in days, I felt a small amount of hope.
Then Olivia sent me a photograph.
It showed a formal invitation displayed on a table.
Grant's engagement celebration.
Scheduled for the following Saturday.
Olivia had canceled their engagement, but Warren was apparently still planning to use the venue for a private investor presentation.
Beneath the photograph, Olivia had written:
Grant says he's announcing a major financial partnership that night.
I stared at the message.
A second photograph followed.
It showed the presentation program.
And there, directly beneath Northstar's logo, was the name of the evening's supposed financial partner.
CARTER FORENSIC CONSULTING.
I called Helena immediately.
"He's still doing it."
"Doing what?"
"Using my company to attract investors."
"Send me everything."
I forwarded the photographs.
Then I looked out at the city.
Grant had already been warned.
He knew the guarantees were disputed.
He knew the bank had blocked his attempted transfer.
He knew authorities were examining Northstar.
May you like
Yet he was preparing to present my firm as his financial partner in a room full of investors.
And the most frightening possibility was that he needed their money badly enough to continue even after the lies had begun collapsing.
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