Chapter 10 - Monica's Stamp
Monica Harrison had worked beside her brother for sixteen years.
She remembered birthdays.
Booked flights.
Corrected Richard's grammar before board meetings.
She had also notarized a document claiming I personally reviewed and approved the transfer of $2.1 million in new electronics into Salvage Reserve.
I had never seen it.
Monica agreed to meet Northstar's counsel and Dana.
She looked at the document for less than ten seconds.
"I notarized the signature page."
"Was Emily present?" Dana asked.
Monica's face changed.
"No."
I stared at her.
"Then why did you stamp it?"
"Richard's office sent it down."
Richard looked at his sister.
"I did not."
"Your folder did."
"What does that mean?"
Monica swallowed.
Trevor regularly left executive packets in Richard's outgoing tray after getting verbal approval.
Monica processed signatures, copied standard signature blocks when authorized, and notarized internal acknowledgments that she believed had already been executed.
It was terrible practice.
Everyone knew it.
Nobody called it fraud because the office had done it for years.
Until it became fraud.
"I didn't think," Monica whispered.
I looked at her.
"No. You didn't."
Richard snapped, "Emily."
I turned.
"Do not defend her from the sentence she just said herself."
He stopped.
Monica cried quietly.
Then she handed Dana a box of old executive packets she had kept at home during the office move.
Inside were drafts Trevor could not access anymore.
One contained a handwritten instruction from Richard:
Move reserve faster this month. If Trevor says it's clear, trust him.
Richard stared at it.
"That's mine."
I said, "I know."
He looked older every day.
The evidence still did not show Richard ordering theft.
It showed something almost more ordinary.
He had built a culture where trust flowed downward without verification and blame flowed downward after failure.
I had lived inside it too.
Then Dana found a second page in Monica's box.
A resignation draft for me.
Prepared three weeks before I was fired.
I stared at my name.
"What is this?"
Monica whispered, "Trevor said Richard wanted it ready in case you became a problem."
Richard looked at her.
"I never asked for that."
The draft included a statement saying I accepted responsibility for "unauthorized route exceptions and customer disclosure violations."
My firing had not been improvised in anger.
Trevor had been preparing to turn me into the explanation for weeks.
Then I saw the line at the bottom.
Proposed severance:
$75,000.
In exchange for silence.
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