Chapter 7 - Colin Reed Disappears
Colin Reed did not come to work after my promotion dinner.
Westbridge placed him on leave before anyone could alert him formally because suspicious records were already under review.
He stopped answering.
His wife reported him missing? Better not. He simply retained counsel and stayed away. Yet if fraud investigation, he may cooperate.
Three days later, his attorney contacted federal prosecutors.
Colin wanted to cooperate.
That happened faster than Mauricio expected.
Why?
Because unlike Mauricio, Colin had no family mythology telling him he could outlast evidence.
He had bank deposits.
Emails.
Cash.
Tickets.
A mortgage.
Two children.
He looked at federal exposure and chose plea negotiations.
His first proffer changed everything.
Mauricio approached him.
Not the other way around.
Mauricio said Westbridge overpaid vendors constantly and nobody cared.
He offered Colin ten percent of “margin.”
Colin initially declined.
Then accepted one invoice.
Then another.
Teresa created entities.
Real subcontractors did enough work to make vendors plausible.
Mauricio told Colin:
“Valeria signs whatever I put in front of her.”
False.
So they stopped asking.
They copied.
Colin admitted forging my sponsor initials on early forms.
Mauricio later supplied signature scans.
The actual login event from my home came from Mauricio.
How did Colin know?
Mauricio sent message next morning:
Got into V portal. Relationship clean now.
That message existed on recovered encrypted chat backup.
Colin had deleted his copy.
Cloud sync survived.
There it was.
My home IP no longer pointed toward me.
May you like
It pointed toward him.
My husband had entered my work account while I slept.
