The Abandoned Wife novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Impostor

On Wednesday morning the Kellerman data room was a windowless conference room.

It held a printer, a pot of bad coffee and twelve hundred spreadsheets.

My two associates had been in it since seven.

They were twenty-six and twenty-eight, they ate nothing but almonds, and they could find a missing dollar in a river.

"Ms. Salter," said the younger one, turning his laptop. "You should look at the foundation."

"The memorial fund?"

"It's a related party, so it's in our scope. The company covers its payroll and handles its books."

I pulled my chair beside him.

The Dara Kellerman Memorial Fund had raised four million dollars in the last twelve months.

Most of it came from shippers who wanted to stay on Tom's good side.

It had given one point four million in grants, and the books said the rest sat in two accounts.

Except the rest didn't.

"Here," he said, and tapped a column.

Fourteen payments, each of them between one hundred thousand and two hundred thousand dollars.

The memo line on every one read EVENT SERVICES.

The payee on every one was RENNER EVENTS LLC.

I read it twice.

"Total?" I said.

"Two point three million. All signed by the same person."

"Who?"

He zoomed in on the signature block.

The signature was a loose, boyish scrawl I had watched on birthday cards, mortgage papers and a marriage license.

Thomas R. Kellerman.

I sat there for a moment with something cold moving down my arms.

"Tom signed them," I said.

"Did he know what he signed?"

"He never reads past the first line."

"Then she's using him," the associate said, and then he flushed. "Sorry. Ms. Renner. I mean, it looks that way."

"It looks that way," I said, and stood up.

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