Chapter 11: Splinter

Holly's POV

Shane carried eleven payroll binders into Annette's kitchen in three trips and stacked them on the table.

"I took them at midnight," he said. "The night guard saw me. He won't say anything."

"You stole company records," I said.

"I borrowed my own signature."

Annette looked at the stack over her reading glasses.

"If you two are going to be criminals, I'm going to need coffee," she said.

Stephanie came in from the porch with a legal pad and sat down at the end of the table.

She had changed into a sweater of Annette's and looked more rested than she had in days.

Shane opened the fourth binder and turned it toward me.

"Equipment rental, Ferris crew," I read. "Paid to Ridgeway Residential."

"It's Melanie's building."

"Eleven payments of twenty-one fifty."

"And my initials on every one," he said.

I looked at the two blue letters in Dalton's slanting hand.

Stephanie stopped writing.

"Dalton put his lover's rent on the company's books," she said slowly. "And booked it as your crew."

"So if anyone audits it," Shane said, "I'm the one who signed for it."

"He was building a place for you to fall," I said.

"Probably not on purpose. He just never worried about who stood where I stood."

I closed the binder.

For the first time that week, I felt something solid under my feet.

"We take it to the board," I said.

"I'll go in myself," Shane said. "I'll put my name on every page. It's my initials, so it's my story to tell."

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