“Then you will,” she stated flatly. “But you cannot execute the extraction tonight. You lack the final piece.”
“What piece?”
“You need them to demonstrate exactly who they are, in front of an audience that cannot conveniently unsee it.”
I drove back to Columbus with the windows rolled down, the humid May air rushing through the cabin. I knew a storm was gathering over the gala, but I could not have predicted the sheer velocity of the violence to come.
Judith executed the event preparation with the ruthless efficiency of a military dictator. The final seating chart arrived in my inbox on a Wednesday.
I opened the PDF and searched for my name. I found it at Table 47. It was located in the absolute back-left corner of the cavernous ballroom, wedged between a structural pillar and the swinging doors of the kitchen service entrance.
Grant, naturally, was positioned at Table 1, dead center of the stage, flanked by Judith and Paige.
I dialed my husband. “Grant, why is my name sitting at Table 47 next to the kitchen?”
He let out a long, theatrical sigh. “It’s a family table for the toast, Myra. Mom really wanted the core, immediate family up front for the photographs. Surely you can understand the optics?”
The core family. The message was unmistakable.
The next morning, Paige called to assign my final duties. “You are going to be our front door greeter, Myra! You just have such a… folksy way with the general public.” Her tone dripped with a saccharine venom. Greeting meant I would be standing in heels for two hours, scanning tickets, ensuring I was the first face every VIP saw, while simultaneously being excluded from the actual celebration.
“I’d love to,” I replied smoothly. Then, I set my trap. “Actually, Paige, I’d love to help with the post-gala thank-you cards. If you give me access to the donor database, I can cross-reference the RSVPs and ensure we don’t misspell any of the big sponsors’ names.”
Paige, eager to offload administrative drudgery, didn’t hesitate. She emailed me the master administrative login credentials that Friday afternoon. She handed me the keys to her mother’s kingdom as if she were tossing me a spare napkin.
At 11:00 PM, while the house was silent and Grant was asleep, I logged into the foundation’s custom backend portal.
The software was immaculate, tracking six years of ledgers. I zeroed in on the current year. The internal deposits confirmed my initial sighting: $340,000 in cleared funds.
Next, I pulled the itemized vendor disbursements. Four companies had submitted invoices for gala services: Florals, Catering, Audiovisual, and Linens. The payouts totaled $212,000.
I ran the tax identification numbers. The catering and linen companies were legitimate local businesses.
The other two were phantoms.
