Chapter twenty-nine
The Level Boardroom
June 2023
Russell
“Is there still no sign of Josephine Rivera?” I ask again for what must be the hundredth time in the past few weeks since she disappeared.
“I told you,” Damon says, “the doctor and her husband have gone off the grid. None of my old contacts have turned up anything. After she ran from the hospital that day, they cleared their house and literally disappeared into thin air.”
My friend raises an eyebrow, which only encourages my defiance of his explanation.
“People don’t just vanish.”
“No, they choose to disappear or are taken care of. The question we should really be asking is why?” Damon straightens his shoulders and leans back in his chair.
My friend reappeared from Scotland with his daughter and the woman who stitched him back together only days ago.
It took three months of groveling for him to win Emma over after he smashed her heart to pieces, but it’s heartwarming to see their family together finally.
They’ll now have their happy ending, all three of them.
Harrison and Connor are sitting, chatting quietly between themselves. Their voices raise a fraction as their debate becomes more heated. Hunter stands, then walks over to the squabbling men, laying a hand on each of their shoulders.
“Now, now, boys,” he says. “What would the two most mellow men in the room be arguing about that the rest of us don’t know?”
“Him,” Connor spits, wagging a finger in Harrison’s direction. “Him having information and not telling the rest of us.”
“I didn’t keep any information from you. I was doing my due diligence, ensuring all my facts were correct.” He straightens his shoulders and shoots my brother a look that offers no argument. “It’s called being a professional.”
“No, it’s being an arsehole. Here we all are, searching for that bitch of a doctor and her husband, and you’ve bloody found them.”
“I didn’t say I found them. I said I know where the money came from. There’s quite a difference. Emma wanted to double-check her findings before telling you all,” Harrison says, his tone relaxed.
“Emma did?” Damon interjects, his attention grabbed by the mention of his girlfriend's name.
“Do you know any other Emmas I work with?”
Damon bristles, clearly annoyed by the obvious fact Harrison pointed out. “I wasn’t aware she had been working.”
The two men stare at one another. They’ve had plenty of similar disagreements since Emma started at our law firm last year.
She’s still in training but proving extremely useful within our business.
She has a sharp eye for discrepancies in documentation and tracking down the truth when something doesn’t feel right.
After her split from Damon in January, it was Harrison who arranged for a six-month contract on a small cottage up in Scotland for her.
He told her to go away and take some time to herself to regroup and focus on what she wants in the future.
It doesn’t surprise me that she’s been working for him directly but under the radar.
Sometimes, I think she would be a better detective than a lawyer, but having the skills of both makes her invaluable.
“Well, she has,” Harrison tells him. “Emma has been trawling through Josephine Rivera’s finances. Did you know their house was being foreclosed on last October?” he asks, turning to me.
I shrug. “No, why would I? My relationship with Josie is ad hoc, especially since she returned to her husband.” The information doesn’t surprise me; her husband has a reputation for bouncing between wealth and bankruptcy proceedings.
“Ah, right.”
“Waite, you’re really beginning to piss me off,” Hunter grumbles. “Stop being so fucking dramatic and tell us what Emma found out.” He pulls his trusty knife from his waistband and spins it between his fingers. “Who can I make into a piece of artwork?”
Harrison stands, then walks over to the window. He looks down at the city below. The sun is beginning to set, and the orange glow of evening shines behind the already-illuminated buildings.
“Before the bank could foreclose on the Rivera house, they miraculously came into enough money to clear the debt. The payment came from Varley Medical Funding Inc., a direct payment into the Riveras’ personal joint account.”
“Why would a medical funding group pay a doctor directly?” I say, frustrated with how slowly Harrison is parting with information. “If it were research, surely the funds would be deposited directly into whatever organization’s account.”
“You would think so. Emma did some digging on Varley Medical Funding, assuming it was attached to the main hospital. It turns out there’s very little connecting the two businesses beyond one sole director on the board.
“Emma has been through every bit of paperwork she can find on the business. Apart from the payment to the Riveras, it seems Varley Medical Funding has supported very few causes. A few small-scale cancer research initiatives and a nationwide program into dementia in local communities. ”
“And do we know what initiative the payment to the Rivera’s was meant to fund?” I ask, perplexed by the random evidence of goodness knows what.
“Nothing more than the description line on the bank payment. Rivera Organ Study. The payment came from a bank in Bermuda that’s well known for protecting customer data. There are no details of such a study listed anywhere we can find,” Harrison says.
“So, what are we thinking?” Connor asks. “That the payment to cover the house is actually a loan. How much was it?” Strangely, no one asked what should have been an obvious question before now.
“One-point-five million pounds.”
“What? Is their house worth that?” I stammer, stunned by the amount.
“According to my property guy, no. The house is valued at one-point-two million. Two payments were made from the Rivera’s account within twenty-four hours of the large deposit.”
“Let me guess,” Damon says. “One to the bank and the other to an untraceable destination.”
“Bingo,” Harrison confirms. “The house was not only in arrears but also in negative equity. Clearing the debt to the bank cost just under one-point-four million. Sadly for the Riveras,
they bought when property prices were high and have remortgaged multiple times during various financial disputes and, of course, their divorce.”
“People are insane,” Hunter mutters. “Marriage is for idiots. To get divorced then remarry the same mug is certifiable.”
“Devane, you are married,” Damon points out, and Hunter shrugs his shoulders. “You and Harrison are currently the only two married men here.”
“Only on paper. It’s all for show. I’ve not seen her in years. Isabella does her thing, and I do mine.”
“You mean she told you to fuck off,” Connor suggests, and Hunter glares at him.
“The feeling was mutual.”
“Do you think you’ll get married again?” I ask Damon before I can stop myself. I immediately regret it. My friend's eyes come to me, but instead of anger, there’s only confusion.
“In all honesty, I don’t know. I’ve only just got Emma back, and with my track record, I’m praying I don’t fuck it up again. Marriage isn’t off the table, but it won't be soon.”
His answer is simple and straightforward: he honestly doesn’t know.
“I don’t even know if she would want to. We’ve never discussed it. She’s home. That’s all that matters. Annie has her mother back.”
His use of the word “mother” doesn’t go unnoticed, but no one comments and every man in the room relaxes a fraction.
Damon finally accepts the truth that Emma has always been his daughter’s mother.
“Anyway, as happy as I am for Damon and Emma, can we get back to the task in hand?” Connor says. “Is the Riveras’ house still in their name? It’s been sitting empty since they disappeared.”
After the couple vanished, Hunter’s men have been keeping tabs on the house they seemed so desperate to keep.
To obtain a huge payment of money from an unknown source to allow you to pay your mortgage off and then abandon the house indicates they’ve run for their lives or are being held somewhere.
If the funds received were a loan... My mind starts whirling with possibilities.
“After the house debt was cleared, were any regular outgoing payments made?” I question, and everyone focuses on me. “If the payment was actually a loan, perhaps we’re missing the repayments.”
“Nothing beyond the usual living costs covered by Dr. Rivera’s wages have left that account since the large deposit. And there’s been no movement beyond direct debits since they disappeared.”
“Do we know who owns this funding company?” Connor asks.
“This is where it gets interesting,” Harrison says.
“The sole director is named Maeve Carlisle. When Emma tracked her down, it turned out she was an eighty-year-old single lady living in Manchester with no knowledge of the company. She said her son Den had her sign some paperwork a while ago but didn’t know what it was for. It was for her security,
was all he would tell her.”
“And do we know where we can track Den down?” Hunter asks.
“No, sadly, Maeve relies on him contacting her. He told her he has no phone. She gave us a basic description of dark hair and blue eyes. She couldn’t even provide a photo. Emma looked at the old lady’s finances; she lives on her pension plus a monthly payment from a private fund, again in Bermuda.
She could find no trace of any living relatives or, in fact, a son called Den.”
Harrison sighs before continuing. “The only true connection we can find is that Maeve attends a club for dementia sufferers, which is one of the programs funded by Varley Medical Funding.”
“So let me get this straight,” I say, needing to summarize the nonsense spoken in the boardroom today.
“The Riveras obtained money to clear their debts plus extra from what seems to be a dubious medical funding organization. The sole director of said company doesn’t know of its existence.
She’s in her eighties and signed paperwork that she had no understanding of on the say-so of a son who doesn’t seem to exist. And she attends a memory loss clinic of some kind funded by the organization she supposedly owns.”