Chapter 6 - Nathan’s Company
Nathan Cole stopped answering his phone.
That was not proof of guilt.
It was terrible judgment.
Police found him six hours later at his brother’s cabin in Connecticut.
He said he had gone there because he knew how everything looked and panicked.
I wanted to call him a coward.
Then remembered how many guilty people say the same thing.
He lawyered up.
Good.
The bank records were ugly.
North Meridian Consulting received payments from Hudson Freight Optimization, one of the vendors flagged in the Moretti Holdings audit.
Monthly amounts.
$12,000.
$15,000.
$18,000.
Descriptions:
Security advisory.
Risk analysis.
Nathan had never disclosed outside consulting.
Our employment policy required it.
He had lied.
What did he provide?
According to him:
Security assessments for warehouse sites.
Were those legitimate?
Maybe.
Did Dominic know?
Nathan said no.
Emails showed Dominic’s operations director did.
That director, Paul Renner, approved Hudson Freight invoices.
We were now chasing corporate fraud and attempted poisoning simultaneously.
I worried we were mixing them because it made a compelling story.
Detective Ellison said exactly that.
“Not every dirty invoice buys a murder.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Working on it.”
Nathan admitted something else.
He had loaned his hardware token to Paul Renner once months earlier during an access problem.
Against policy.
That may explain credential copying.
But the party login occurred while Paul was in Philadelphia.
Phone location records supported.
Could be remote.
Could be unrelated.
Nathan denied creating Gavin’s badge.
Denied camera blackout.
Denied knowing Gavin.
Then investigators showed him a photo.
Gavin entering a Midtown restaurant three weeks before the party.
Nathan leaving seventeen minutes later.
Nathan stared.
“That’s coincidence.”
“It’s Manhattan,” his lawyer said.
Fair.
Then another photo.
Parking garage.
Same evening.
Gavin beside Nathan’s SUV.
Nathan stopped talking.
A private investigator working for Moretti internal audit had taken the photos while following Nathan for vendor conflict questions before the birthday.
I had ordered that audit surveillance?
No.
Our outside audit firm had used subcontractors after North Meridian surfaced.
I had never seen images.
Nathan finally spoke through counsel.
“I met him.”
“For what?”
“He said he represented Hudson Freight.”
“Why?”
“Wanted estate event security work.”
“Did you give it?”
“No.”
“Did you tell him about Ethan?”
“No.”
“Did you give him badge access?”
“No.”
Then Detective:
“Did you disable a camera?”
Nathan closed eyes.
“Yes.”
The room froze.
“Why?”
“He paid me.”
“How much?”
“Five thousand.”
“For seventeen minutes?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“He needed to bring a donor through service hall without photographs.”
“Did you know it was Gavin?”
“I knew him as Greg Price.”
“Did you know he’d enter cold room?”
“No.”
“Did you know Ethan’s cake was there?”
Nathan’s face broke.
“No.”
Maybe truth.
Maybe not.
But the security chief had sold seventeen minutes of blindness during my son’s birthday.
That alone ended his career with me.
Then:
“Who told Gavin the service corridor would be unmonitored?”
“I did.”
“Who told him where the cold room was?”
Nathan whispered:
“Dominic.”
I stopped breathing.
Detective Ellison did not.
“When?”
“Gavin asked where Bellamy desserts were stored. I didn’t know. Dominic was standing nearby at an earlier site walkthrough. He told him.”
Dominic had met Gavin before the party.
May you like
That directly contradicted his statement that he assumed Gavin was event staff when he handed over the container.
We finally had a provable lie.
