Chapter 4 - DAVID KNEW WHO SHE WAS BEFORE HE HIRED HER
The next discovery came from Sterling’s archived system logs.
Four days before Claire’s original job interview, David searched an old corporate database for:
CARTER, THOMAS
Claire’s father.
Thomas Carter had died when Claire was twenty-two.
She knew he had been an accountant.
That was almost all.
Marcus found more.
Before Sterling’s Bistro occupied the building, the restaurant had been called Bell & Sterling.
Thomas Carter had kept its books.
Claire remembered something immediately.
During her interview three years earlier, David had looked at her résumé.
“Carter?”
“Yes.”
“Any relation to Thomas Carter?”
“He was my father.”
David had smiled.
“Small world.”
Claire had interpreted the question as friendliness.
Now it sounded like identification.
Vincent asked:
“Do you still have your father’s records?”
“My mother kept boxes.”
“Where?”
Claire stiffened.
“You don’t need to know that.”
Vincent accepted the correction immediately.
“You’re right.”
That mattered.
He was powerful.
He did not get automatic access to her family simply because he had helped expose David.
Claire went alone to her mother’s house in Cicero.
Thomas’s boxes sat in a basement closet.
Tax files.
Receipts.
Old calculators.
Then a banker’s box marked:
BELL & STERLING — 1998–2004
Inside were old ledgers, correspondence, and one unsigned affidavit.
A name appeared repeatedly.
ELEANOR BELL
Ownership dispute.
Claire had never heard of her.
One handwritten note from Thomas read:
NO EXECUTED SALE AGREEMENT FOUND.
Another:
BELL REFUSES REDEMPTION.
Then:
RICHARD SAYS KANE COUNSEL WILL HANDLE.
Claire carried the box to Marcus the following morning.
Vincent was there when Marcus read that sentence.
“Kane counsel?” Vincent asked.
Marcus looked uncomfortable.
“Samuel Kane.”
Vincent’s father.
The room changed.
Vincent Kane had spent the entire investigation thinking the dishonesty belonged to David Sterling.
Now his own family name sat in Thomas Carter’s old handwriting.
Claire watched his face.
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
She was not sure she believed him.
May you like
That uncertainty was important.
Because the man Rory thought was the real boss had just lost the right to stand automatically on the good side of the story.
