Chapter 6 - The Man Who Followed the Money
Jonah Brooks did not look like the forensic accountant I had imagined.
I expected a gray suit.
He wore jeans, a blue shirt, and a jacket with a coffee stain near the cuff.
He was forty, divorced, and possessed the unnerving ability to explain financial crimes as if he were discussing weather.
We met in the hotel’s old archive room.
Boxes covered the table.
“Your family has terrible filing habits,” he said.
“My mother didn’t.”
“No.”
He lifted a binder.
“Your mother was terrifyingly organized.”
I smiled despite everything.
“That sounds right.”
Jonah became our most important ally because he did not care about the Halston name.
He cared about patterns.
And he found one.
Payments linked to Nathan had begun six years earlier.
Small at first.
A hundred thousand.
Then two hundred.
Then consulting agreements.
Vendor relationships.
Development retainers.
By the time Celeste ordered security to remove me, companies connected to Nathan had received more than nine million dollars from hotel operations.
Nine million.
Not twenty-four.
Not eighteen.
But enough to change the nature of the case.
I asked:
“Why would Dad allow this?”
Jonah shrugged.
“Maybe he didn’t understand.”
“My father understands numbers.”
“Then maybe he believed the services were real.”
“They weren’t.”
“Or maybe Nathan had leverage.”
I thought of my mother’s letter.
Paternity.
Jonah noticed my expression.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He didn’t push.
Instead, he showed me another pattern.
Every time the hotel paid one of Nathan’s entities, Richard received a personal transfer from a company called RHL Advisory.
I frowned.
“RHL.”
“Richard Halston?”
“That would be my guess.”
“Who funded it?”
“That’s where things become interesting.”
The deposits came from an investment fund controlled by Crestline Commercial Capital.
The same lender that held the eighteen-million-dollar debt.
“Kickbacks?”
“Could be.”
“Or?”
“Could be rebates.”
“Explain.”
“If Richard agreed to high-fee financing, someone may have compensated him indirectly.”
I stared at the spreadsheet.
My father had always lectured me about reputation.
Never sign anything you wouldn’t want on the front page.
Never confuse income with wealth.
Never borrow for appearances.
Those were his sayings.
Maybe they had been my mother’s.
“What do we need?”
“Bank records.”
“Can we get them?”
“Not voluntarily.”
“Then we use litigation.”
Jonah nodded.
“But there’s another way.”
He opened a scanned expense report.
An assistant had accidentally attached the wrong PDF.
RHL Advisory’s bank name appeared at the bottom.
More importantly, so did a relationship manager.
Caroline Trent.
I knew the name.
Caroline had attended my parents’ anniversary dinners.
She had sent flowers when Mom died.
“She knew my mother.”
“Then talk to her.”
Caroline agreed to meet me that evening.
She was sixty-four now.
Retired.
We met in a quiet restaurant near Central Park.
When I mentioned RHL Advisory, her face changed.
“You found that?”
“Yes.”
She looked toward the window.
“I wondered when someone would.”
My heart accelerated.
“What is it?”
“Your father’s private vehicle.”
“Why did he create it?”
“To settle obligations.”
“What obligations?”
She looked at me for a long time.
Then said:
“Your father has been paying Celeste for years.”
I almost laughed.
“They’re married.”
“Before they were married.”
Silence.
Caroline continued.
“The payments began before Evelyn died.”
“How much?”
“Initially fifty thousand every quarter.”
“For what?”
“I was told consulting.”
“Was that true?”
“I never saw any work.”
My mother had known about the affair.
But maybe not the payments.
“Did Evelyn know?”
Caroline’s eyes filled with sadness.
“She discovered one transfer.”
“And?”
“She came to see me.”
“What did you tell her?”
“The truth.”
I looked down.
My mother had spent her last years fighting cancer while discovering her husband was financing another woman.
I hated him in that moment.
Then Caroline said something unexpected.
“Your father stopped the payments after Evelyn confronted him.”
“For how long?”
“Almost three years.”
“Then?”
“They started again after he married Celeste.”
That made sense.
But the source changed.
Instead of Richard paying Celeste directly, hotel-connected entities began paying Nathan’s businesses.
A family system.
Money moving through respectable contracts.
I asked Caroline about paternity.
She shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“Did Mom ask?”
“Yes.”
“What did Dad say?”
“He said Nathan wasn’t his.”
“Did you believe him?”
Caroline paused.
May you like
“No.”
That single word followed me home.
