Chapter 5
The financial review did not reveal a spectacular theft.
That would have been easier.
It revealed padded invoices.
Duplicate security charges.
Equipment billed to properties that never received it.
Over eighteen months, Damian’s company had received approximately $780,000 more than outside reviewers believed the work justified.
Damian disputed the analysis.
He claimed coastal security costs had increased.
Some had.
Not enough.
Vivienne had approved several invoices.
Cassandro looked at her signature.
“Why?”
“They were routine.”
“You worked in donor relations.”
“Damian said finance was delayed.”
“So you signed them?”
“Yes.”
Cassandro did not believe that was the whole story.
But there was another complication.
Elena’s planned separation came before she began questioning the invoices.
That meant the financial issue did not cause the marriage problem.
Two different tensions had collided.
Cassandro had made home unbearable.
Damian had financial secrets.
Vivienne was standing between both.
Then Elena’s old accountant found a handwritten note scanned into a project folder.
V says D can explain.
Talk after Santa Barbara.
V.
Vivienne.
Elena had apparently trusted Vivienne enough to ask her about Damian.
Cassandro felt the betrayal becoming more personal.
Vivienne had not merely known Elena planned to leave.
She knew Elena was questioning her brother.
Still, none of it explained why Elena never came home.
Or why Vivienne would attack Audrey fourteen months later over a child’s memory.
That evening Audrey asked where Vivienne was.
Cassandro hesitated.
“At the guesthouse.”
“Is she mad?”
“I don't know.”
Audrey looked at her bracelet.
The waterproof band had been on her wrist since the pool incident.
Cassandro had barely noticed it before.
“Who gave you that?”
“Mommy.”
Cassandro’s attention sharpened.
The bracelet was too large to have fit Audrey fourteen months earlier.
“Mommy gave you this?”
Audrey shook her head.
“Aunt Vivienne.”
Cassandro stared at her.
“When?”
Audrey thought carefully.
“Mommy day.”
The day Elena vanished.
Cassandro turned the bracelet over.
May you like
Engraved inside were two words.
SANTA BARBARA.
