Rebecca looked uncomfortable.
“We have procedures.”
“Then let’s review them.”
For the next hour, we examined payment histories.
Most transactions were ordinary.
Furniture manufacturers.
Architectural consultants.
Lighting suppliers.
Contractors.
Then Dad noticed a recurring beneficiary.
Lakefront Strategic Solutions LLC.
The payments were irregular.
Sometimes twenty thousand dollars.
Sometimes fifty thousand.
Occasionally more than eighty thousand.
Rebecca frowned.
“I don’t recognize that company.”
Neither did I.
Dad asked for the vendor file.
Rebecca opened it.
The listed service was business development consulting.
The vendor had been established five years earlier.
The first invoice had been approved during a period when we were expanding into hospitality projects.
And the person who originally recommended the vendor was Brandon Hayes.
My stomach tightened.
“How much have we paid them?”
Rebecca began adding the transfers.
The total appeared at the bottom of the spreadsheet.
$1,927,460.
Nearly two million dollars.
I stared at the screen.
“That can’t be right.”
