Chapter 11 Rose #4
He didn’t sit. His eyes moved from me to Denise to Graham and back, and comprehension dawned across his face like a slow bruise.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
I laid it out. The fraudulent vendors. The inflated invoices. The missing deposit. The seventy-two thousand dollars that had been siphoned through shell companies registered with his credentials.
Taylor’s face went through stages. Confusion. Then comprehension. Then a slow, dawning horror. The best acting I’d ever seen.
“Rose, I didn’t—” He stood up. “Those companies— I didn’t set those up. I processed the payments because Denise told me they were approved vendors. She gave me the account numbers. She told me you’d signed off on—”
“Don’t.” Denise’s voice cut through like a blade. She was trembling, hands shaking, jaw tight, eyes bright with fury. “Don’t you dare try to put this on me.”
“Denise, just tell her.” Taylor turned to her, and desperation poured off him in waves. Not rage. Fear. “Tell her you gave me those accounts. Tell her you set up the payment schedules and told me to process them. Tell her—”
“I can’t believe I ever loved you,” Denise said, her voice cracking. “I vouched for you. And now you’re trying to blame me for what you did?”
Taylor looked at her for a long moment. Then his expression collapsed.
“Rose,” he said, turning to me. “I know how this looks. But I swear to you— I was just doing what I was told. I thought these were legitimate payments. I thought—”
“Your name is on everything, Taylor.” My voice was steady, even though my hands weren’t. “Every transaction. Every shell company. Your digital signature. Your login credentials.”
“Because she set it up that way!” His voice rose, cracking. “She had me sign everything. Said it was for accountability. Said you wanted a clear chain of—” He stopped. Looked at Denise again. Then back at me. “You’re not going to believe me. Are you.”
It wasn’t a question.
“I’d like you to leave the property,” I said. “Today.”
Taylor stood there for another moment. Then he nodded slowly, like a man accepting a verdict he’d known was coming.
He walked to the door. Stopped. Looked back, not at me. At Denise.
“You know what you fucking did,” he said quietly.
Denise met his stare with tears rolling down her cheeks. “Get the fuck out, Taylor.”
He left.
I watched him through the window, crossing the yard with his shoulders hunched, hands shoved in his pockets, not looking back. Graham was watching too. When I glanced at him, his expression was unreadable.
“You okay?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “But it’s done.”
Denise wiped her eyes and squeezed my arm. “I’ll go change his access codes right now. Every system, every lock, everything. He won’t be able to touch a thing again.”
“Thank you.”
She left. Graham and I stood alone in the office.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I said before he could speak.
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“You were thinking it.”
He was quiet for a moment. “He was scared, Rose. Not angry. Scared.”
“He was caught. People act all kinds of ways when they’re caught.”
Graham nodded slowly. But the look on his face said he wasn’t done thinking about it.
Sandra called at four that afternoon.
I’d spent the day in a fog, answering emails, handling a supply delivery, pretending the morning hadn’t hollowed me out. Graham had kept his distance, working with Hank. Denise had texted twice with updates: all access codes changed, systems locked down, sheriff’s office contacted.
Efficient. Exactly what I needed.
When Sandra’s name lit up my phone and the floor dropped out again.
“Rose, there’s another problem.” No preamble. “Your liability insurance lapsed. Three months ago.”
I sat down slowly. “That’s not possible. The premiums are on auto-renewal.”
“They were. But the auto-pay was routed through the same digital payment system Taylor managed. After the last premium payment was denied, the policy lapsed. You’ve been operating without liability coverage for ninety days.”
Ninety days. Three months of guests on my property, riding my horses, sleeping in my cabins, with no insurance. If anyone had been hurt. If a horse had spooked. If a guest had fallen on a trail ride.
“What does this mean?” I asked, though I already knew.
“It means you need to reinstate immediately, which will cost significantly more than the original premium because you’ll be flagged as a lapse risk. And it means if your lender finds out you’ve been operating without coverage, they can trigger the review clause in your loan agreement.”
“How much to reinstate?”
Sandra told me.
I closed my eyes.
Denise appeared in the office doorway ten minutes later. She must have seen something on my face, because she came in and closed the door.
“What happened?”
“Insurance lapsed,” I said. “Three months of no coverage.”
Denise’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh God. The auto-renewals—”
“Went through Taylor’s payment system. Same one he used for everything else.”
Denise closed her eyes. When she opened them, she looked sick.
“Of course. If he was diverting payments, the insurance premiums would have been redirected right along with everything else. It was all running through the same pipeline.” She pressed her palms against her temples.
“Rose, I should have caught this. The renewal confirmations come to my email. I should have noticed when they stopped.”
“You had no reason to check,” I said. “It was automated.”
“I still should have—”
“You didn’t know.” The same words I’d said earlier. They were starting to feel hollow, but I didn’t have the energy to examine why. “None of us knew.”
Denise sat beside me. “How bad is it?”
I told her about the reinstatement cost. About the review clause. About what the bank could do if they found out.
She listened. Nodded. Squeezed my hand.
“We’ll figure it out,” she said. “We always do.”