Chapter 6 - The Woman in the PhotographHer name was Rebecca Sloan.
When Detective Ruiz finally showed me the photograph, I recognized her immediately.
Forty-three.
Dark hair.
Minimal makeup.
Always dressed like she had somewhere more important to be.
Rebecca was SwiftFreight's former chief financial officer.
She had resigned eighteen months earlier after what Gavin called a “strategic disagreement.”
At the time, I believed him.
Rebecca had attended Christmas dinners at our house.
She had once sent flowers when I had surgery.
Then, suddenly, she disappeared from company life.
Gavin told everyone she'd become unstable.
Difficult.
Disloyal.
I should have recognized the vocabulary.
Instead, I accepted it.
Now photographs showed Gavin meeting Rebecca four times in the previous month.
Not romantically.
The investigator's long-lens shots showed folders.
Documents.
Arguments.
Once, Rebecca appeared to shove an envelope back across a restaurant table.
Ruiz contacted her.
She agreed to speak.
The next afternoon, Naomi and I met Rebecca in a private conference room.
She walked in carrying no handbag.
No laptop.
Only a thick accordion folder.
When she saw me, her expression softened.
“Sabrina.”
“Rebecca.”
She stopped several feet away.
“I heard what happened.”
My stomach tightened.
“Everybody has.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“I mean I heard the recording.”
I looked at Naomi.
Rebecca clarified.
“The board's investigative counsel interviewed me. They played a portion because they needed to ask whether Gavin had ever behaved similarly with employees.”
I sat down.
“Did he?”
Rebecca remained standing.
“Not physically, that I witnessed.”
Then she added:
“But the rest? Yes.”
She opened the folder.
Inside were financial statements.
“Why did you leave SwiftFreight?” I asked.
Rebecca stared at Gavin's former company logo printed across one sheet.
“I discovered he was moving expenses between divisions to make our operating margins appear stronger before refinancing.”
Naomi leaned forward.
“Fraudulently?”
“I couldn't prove intent at the time. Some accounting classifications had judgment involved.”
“What happened when you challenged him?”
“He told me I was tired.”
I almost smiled bitterly.
Rebecca continued.
“Then emotional. Then disloyal. Then dangerous to the company.”
Same script.
Always.
“He pushed the board to replace me.”
“Why didn't you sue?”
“My father was dying. I didn't have the strength to fight a public battle against a CEO everyone worshiped.”
Her eyes met mine.
“I signed a separation agreement and left.”
“Then why were you meeting him recently?”
“Because he called me.”
That surprised everyone.
“He wanted something.”
“What?”
Rebecca pulled out a single page.
An old memorandum.
“He needed me to confirm that a financial adjustment from three years ago had been routine.”
“Was it?”
“No.”
“What was it?”
She explained.
Three years earlier, SwiftFreight had suffered losses on several major contracts.
Gavin delayed recognizing some of those losses until after emergency financing closed.
Not necessarily illegal by itself, depending on disclosures.
But Northbridge's current $3.2 billion deal relied partly on historical financial representations.
If Gavin knew the earlier statements were materially misleading, the entire transaction could unravel.
“He wanted you to sign a confirmation?” Naomi asked.
“Yes.”
“And you refused.”
“Four times.”
That explained the meetings.
Not another affair.
Another woman Gavin needed to control.
Rebecca continued.
“At our final meeting, he offered me two million dollars.”
“For the signature?”
“He called it a consulting contract.”
Naomi sat back.
“Of course he did.”
Rebecca looked at me.
“I was deciding whether to report it when everything happened with you.”
“You should.”
“I already have.”
The circle tightened.
Gavin's problems were no longer centered on our marriage.
Investigators began discovering a pattern.
A settlement he pressured me to sign.
A memo he pressured Rebecca to sign.
Potential payments surrounding Thomas Vance.
Deletion requests involving security footage.
Misleading financial representations.
Any one issue might be explainable.
Together, they formed something much harder to dismiss.
Behavior.
Gavin treated signatures as obstacles.
Truth as negotiable.
People as leverage.
Still, there was one thing I didn't understand.
“Why was he so desperate to close this deal?” I asked Rebecca.
“He'd make hundreds of millions.”
She shook her head.
“More than money.”
“What?”
“Debt.”
She pulled another document from the folder.
Gavin had pledged a significant portion of his personal SwiftFreight shares as collateral for private loans.
Not company loans.
Personal ones.
“How much?” Naomi asked.
Rebecca hesitated.
“Approximately four hundred eighty million.”
I stared at her.
“That can't be right.”
“It is.”
“For what?”
“Real estate investments. Venture funds. A yacht. Several private transactions.”
My husband had nearly half a billion dollars in personal debt.
And I had known none of it.
Rebecca continued.
“If the Northbridge deal closed at the proposed valuation, Gavin could refinance everything comfortably.”
“And if it doesn't?”
“Several lenders can demand additional collateral.”
“What happens if the SwiftFreight valuation falls?”
Rebecca's answer was quiet.
“He could lose control of his shares.”
Everything snapped into place.
The desperation.
The rushed divorce.
My ownership interest.
Rebecca's signature.
Thomas.
The effort to erase footage.
Gavin wasn't protecting an empire.
He was racing against its collapse.
My phone buzzed.
Naomi checked the message first.
Her expression changed.
“What?”
She handed it to me.
It came from Gavin.
Come home tonight. Alone. You deserve the complete truth.
Ruiz had told me never to meet him privately.
I forwarded the message immediately.
Thirty seconds later, another came.
Ask Rebecca why your name appears on the old financing documents.
I looked up.
Rebecca's face had gone pale.
“What is he talking about?”
She didn't answer.
“Rebecca.”
She slowly opened the accordion folder again.
“I hoped we would have more time before this came up.”
My stomach tightened.
“What came up?”
She pulled out a document dated three years earlier.
At the bottom were two signature lines.
One belonged to Gavin.
The other—
belonged to me.
Except I had never seen the document before.
My signature had been copied.
And if the document was what Rebecca believed it was, someone had used my name to certify financial disclosures supporting hundreds of millions of dollars in financing.
Suddenly Gavin's attack wasn't only about removing me from SwiftFreight.
It might have been about preventing me from discovering that he had used me years earlier.
Without my knowledge.
Without my permission.
May you like
And potentially—
with a forged signature.
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