My anger cooled instantly.
“And?”
“There are hundreds of messages.”
I gripped the table.
“To whom?”
“Vendors.
Hotels.
Restaurants.
Paige’s company.
Your spa.
Some go back nearly two years.”
He paused.
“And Mom…”
“Yes?”
“There are emails written as if they’re from you.”
I closed my eyes.
“How many?”
“I don’t know yet.”
That answer scared me more than any number.
The next morning, Celeste, Grant, and I met in Northstar’s smaller conference room.
Paige did not know.
That fact alone changed the atmosphere.
Grant looked terrible.
He had not slept.
Celeste had organized files into categories.
“She used multiple routes,” Celeste said.
“That’s why no single expense looked large enough to trigger an internal alarm.”
She turned her laptop toward us.
There were charges through PVR Creative.
Direct corporate card expenses.
Reimbursements.
Vendor pass-throughs.
“Pass-throughs?”
I asked.
“She would invoice Northstar for a vendor expense, then the vendor would separately bill Northstar.”
“Double billing.”
“In several cases, yes.”
Grant rubbed his forehead.
“How did accounting miss that?”
Celeste’s expression hardened.
“Because your credentials approved exceptions.”
Grant lowered his hand.
“I didn’t approve them.”
“I believe you.”
He looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because some were approved while you were in Japan last October.”
Grant froze.
He had spent eight days there meeting investors.
His corporate phone had been replaced the second day after a network malfunction.
Only one person at home had access to the old device.
Paige.
Celeste opened another folder.
“There’s more.”
Of course there was.
There is always more after someone says there’s more.
A Santa Fe interior designer had invoiced Northstar for a model-home consultation.
Except the address listed for the consultation wasn’t a model home.
It was Diane’s house.
A landscaping company had billed Northstar for exterior staging.
Same address.
New patio stone.
Tree removal.
Garden lighting.
Total: $11,600.
Grant stared at the screen.
“She remodeled her mother’s house through Northstar?”
Celeste didn’t answer.
She didn’t need to.
Another reimbursement covered flights to Scottsdale labeled “developer retreat.”
Paige and Diane had traveled together.
Grant had not.
Neither had any Northstar employee.
Another invoice showed “executive wellness strategy consultation.”
Juniper House Spa.
Grant leaned back.
“I feel sick.”
I looked at him.
Part of me wanted to comfort him.
A mother’s instincts do not disappear just because a son disappoints her.
But I kept my hands folded.
He needed to feel the full weight of what he had ignored.
“Grant,” I said, “this isn’t just money.”
“I know.”
“No.
It’s the system.”
He looked at me.
“She used trust as infrastructure.”
That sentence stayed in the room.
Celeste nodded slowly.
“She also understood where the company was emotionally vulnerable.”
“What does that mean?”
Grant asked.
“She knew Marian’s name carried authority.”
My stomach tightened.
Before Russell died, Northstar had still felt like ours.
Even after Grant became chief executive, longtime employees treated me with a kind of unofficial seniority.
An email from Marian Whitlock did not get questioned.
Paige knew that.
She had weaponized my reputation.
The next discovery was worse.
Celeste pulled up three emails regarding a property acquisition outside Tesuque.
“This land deal was canceled last year because Grant believed the seller raised the price.”
“I remember,” I said.
Grant leaned forward.
“What about it?”
“The seller didn’t raise the price.”
Grant went rigid.
Celeste showed us a forwarded email thread.
An offer of $1.82 million.
A counteroffer of $1.9 million.
Then an internal message from “Marian Whitlock” telling the acquisitions team to withdraw because I had “serious concerns about the environmental exposure.”
I stared at the screen.
“I never wrote that.”
“I know.”
Grant stood up.
“What happened to the property?”
Celeste looked uncomfortable.
“It sold three months later.”
“To whom?”
She hesitated.
“A holding company.”
“What company?”
“Juniper Mesa Holdings.”
Grant’s voice sharpened.
“Who owns it?”
Celeste looked at me.
Not him.
Me.
That frightened me.
“Paige owns forty-nine percent.”
Grant went completely still.
“And the rest?”
Celeste clicked another document.
“Diane owns fifty-one.”
The silence afterward felt physical.
Paige and Diane had blocked a Northstar acquisition using my identity, then bought the land themselves.
Grant walked to the window.
“Why?”
Celeste answered carefully.
“The property was recently rezoned.”
He turned.
“What’s it worth now?”
“Conservatively?”
“Yes.”
“About $3.4 million.”
He laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“My wife stole a land deal from my company.”
Then he looked at me.
“Using my mother’s name.”
I expected rage.
What appeared on his face was worse.
Grief.
The grief of realizing the person sleeping beside you has been living somewhere you were never invited.
Grant drove home early that day.
I told him not to confront Paige.
He promised.
He lied.
At 4:26 p.m., he called me.
“She knows.”
I stood up from my desk.
“You confronted her?”
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