Friday arrived with rain.
Ashton was already dressed when I woke.
He told me there was a meeting downtown.
He didn't say what kind.
I asked whether he would be home for supper.
“Probably late.”
His suitcase was gone from under the bed.
I had heard him dragging it down the hall before dawn.
After he left, Leah drove me to Naomi's office.
We entered through a side door because I didn't want to run into anyone from Open Door Design in the lobby.
My business partner, Priya Nair, was waiting.
We had founded Open Door together, although I owned the controlling membership interest.
Priya was our operations director and the person who kept projects moving when I was ill.
She hugged me carefully.
“I should have called you months ago,” she said.
“Why didn't you?”
“Ashton kept telling me you needed privacy.”
“I did need privacy.”
“I know. But he started treating every request to speak to you as an intrusion.”
She set a folder on the table.
It contained copies of company payments.
Most were ordinary.
Contractor invoices.
Software subscriptions.
Staff reimbursements.
Then she showed me five transfers to Northpoint Strategies.
The total was nearly sixty thousand dollars.
“Did Northpoint do any work?” I asked.
“We haven't found deliverables.”
“Was there a contract?”
“Only a consulting agreement Ashton signed.”
Naomi raised her hand.
“We need to avoid making conclusions before we finish reviewing the records.”
Priya nodded.
“But we can stop further payments until they're verified.”
The accountant had already recommended new approval controls.
Two authorized signers for larger transfers.
Monthly reports delivered directly to both founders.
A review of vendor records.
Access logs for the document management system.
It embarrassed me to realize how long I had let the reports pile up unread.
But Priya didn't blame my disability.
She said Ashton had repeatedly assured staff that all questions should go through him.
“That's the part I regret accepting,” she told me.
I turned to Naomi.
“What happens to the transfer today?”
“Counsel for the investor has been notified that the signature is disputed.”
“Will they walk away?”
“They have suspended the transaction pending review.”
It wasn't victory.
It was time.
I hadn't realized how much I needed time.
Naomi explained that the notary whose name appeared on the document had not yet confirmed performing the acknowledgment.
We had to wait for a response and review the notarial journal where applicable.
She also wanted original records preserved.
I understood.
A blurry photocopy on my phone might show a problem.
It could not by itself establish every fact.
When we broke for lunch, Priya took me into the courtyard.
I could see orange flowers along the wall.
They looked like spots of paint.
“We miss you,” she said.
“I've been working from home.”
“That's not what I mean.”
She opened a container of soup.
“We miss the way you ask everybody in the room what they think.”
I smiled despite myself.
“Ashton says meetings run faster without that.”
“They do.”
“Maybe he's right.”
“They're faster,” she repeated.
“Not better.”
We sat quietly.
Then I asked about the design for the new county library.
Priya told me about an argument over the placement of tactile signs.
For ten minutes, we discussed door clearance, noise levels, and circulation routes.
I stopped thinking about the lawsuit.
Priya asked whether I wanted to speak with the external accountant directly.
I said yes.
On the call, he described the review in plain terms.
He would reconcile invoices with bank records and company approvals.
He would examine related-party payments and request evidence that services had been provided.
He warned us that missing documentation did not automatically establish dishonesty.
It did show weak controls, and we needed to correct them.
I appreciated that he didn't flatter me by promising a dramatic discovery.
Afterward, I called our payroll administrator.
I wanted confirmation that staff wages were scheduled and funded.
She walked through the next pay cycle with me.
Those employees had families and bills.
Their security mattered more than my desire for immediate answers.
Once I knew payroll was safe, I returned to the investor dispute.
The transaction was suspended.
That gave us room to act responsibly, not a reason to celebrate before the work was finished.
Priya brought an old project ledger to the meeting.
It was the same spreadsheet format we had used when the company had only three employees.
She had kept it out of habit.
She showed me the payments from a year earlier.
Before Ashton created Northpoint, he had billed genuine hours through his own consulting arrangement.
We had approved that arrangement together.
There were signed statements of work.
There were meeting notes.
There were completed marketing materials.
Then the pattern changed.
New invoices described strategic services with no dates.
The descriptions were vague.
Some bills had identical language.
Priya asked Ashton for supporting work samples.
He told her they were confidential.
She had accepted that answer twice.
The third time, she emailed me.
Ashton replied from my address.
He wrote that I was comfortable with the arrangement.
Priya still had the message.
I stared at the timestamp.
I had been at an occupational-therapy appointment that afternoon.
I remembered because the therapist had asked me to practice handling coins.
I spent twenty minutes separating nickels from quarters.
I had not sent an email authorizing consultant fees.
Naomi asked Priya for the original message headers and system logs.
“Could he have been using a delegated mailbox?” she asked.
“He had administrative access,” Priya answered.
“We'll have to examine that.”
It was another example of why suspicion and proof were different things.
The email might have been written by Ashton.
The system records might show how it was sent.
We needed both.
During a break, Priya confessed that she had considered resigning.
“I thought you'd decided I wasn't useful anymore,” she said.
I turned toward her.
“Why would you think that?”
“Ashton stopped inviting me to budget meetings.”
“He never told me.”
“He said it was your decision.”
I felt anger rise.
Then I took a breath.
“I wish you'd called me directly.”
“I know.”
“We both let him become the messenger.”
She nodded.
“We did.”
It was not enough to promise it would never happen again.
We needed a different way of working.
We agreed that major financial reports would go to both of us.
We would require confirmation from my own accessible account for company decisions.
Staff would have a documented way to raise concerns without going through a single manager.
Priya said she would help design that process.
Before leaving, she placed my original company notebook on the table.
It had a turquoise cover and bent corners.
I knew it by touch.
Inside were drawings of our first proposed accessible reception counter.
My handwriting filled the margins.
When I flipped to the back, a dried yellow flower fell out.
Priya laughed.
“You kept that?”
“Where did it come from?”
“From the day we signed the first contract. You stole it from the café centerpiece.”
“I borrowed it.”
“Forever.”
For a minute, we laughed like we used to.
Then we packed the ledger carefully for the accountants.
I left the office carrying a piece of my old life that Ashton had not touched.
I was back in my own work.
On the ride home, my phone rang.
Ashton.
“Where are you?”
“Out.”
“Out where?”
“Meeting someone.”
He lowered his voice.
“Did you speak with anybody at Open Door?”
“Why?”
“Because I just got a strange email.”
“What did it say?”
“That there is some kind of dispute about paperwork.”
I watched rain slide across Leah's windshield.
“Then you should speak with your lawyer.”
He went silent.
For the first time, I heard him breathing rather than arguing.
“Sutton. What have you done?”
“I asked questions.”
He ended the call.
I didn't know whether he'd return to the house that night.
I knew I wouldn't be there when he did.
Click here to continue reading: PART 6: The First Night I Slept Somewhere Ashton Could Not Control
The Black Suitcase Beneath Our Bed Held a Signature I Had Never Written
Part 5 of 16
