Chapter 2 - The Sealed Manila Envelope
The forward curtain swayed shut behind her, cutting off the galley from view.
The cabin lights dimmed for taxiing, leaving row two bathed in a faint, eerie blue hue.
I stared down at the heavy cream envelope sitting on my tray table like an unexploded bomb.
The red wax seal bore Dakota’s initials: D.B.
My hand trembled as my fingertips grazed the thick paper.
“Don’t touch it,” Trinity whispered sharply from the seat beside me.
I jerked my hand back as if the paper had burned me.
“What do you mean, don’t touch it?” I hissed under the rumble of the jet engines spooling up.
“She is setting you up, Miles,” Trinity said, her eyes darting between me and the envelope.
“Look at her.”
“She didn’t scream.”
“She didn’t make a scene.”
“No normal woman finds her husband on a flight with another woman and acts like she’s serving afternoon tea.”
“Dakota isn’t normal,” I muttered, wiping the sweat from my forehead.
“She’s methodical.”
“She’s an engineer’s daughter.”
“She measures everything down to the millimeter before she cuts.”
The plane lurched forward, turning onto the active runway with a heavy shudder of metal.
Trinity turned her head toward the dark window, crossing her arms defensively over her chest.
“You lied to me about everything,” she said, her voice flat and poisonous.
“You told me your marriage had been a dead contract for two years.”
“You told me you slept in separate wings of that house in Oakridge.”
“We do sleep in separate rooms sometimes,” I lied desperately.
“Don’t insult my intelligence, Miles!” she snapped, turning back to glare at me.
“She asked you about your kitchen!”
“She knew what time you claimed you landed in Tennessee!”
“You’re still living with her as husband and wife, aren’t you?”
I pressed my temples between my fingers, feeling a migraine building behind my eyes.
“Trinity, we can talk about our relationship when we get through this flight.”
“Our relationship?” She let out a humorless bark of laughter that drew a brief glance from the passenger across the aisle.
“There is no relationship, Miles.”
“There is only a train wreck, and I am strapped into the front car with you.”
The aircraft accelerated down the runway, the roar of the engines drowning out any further argument.
G-force pressed my back hard against the leather seat as the nose lifted into the overcast sky.
Through the small window, the twinkling grid of the city fell away beneath thick grey clouds.
Ten minutes later, the chime sounded, signaling we had cleared ten thousand feet.
The message on my phone was still glowing in my mind: Corporate account suspended.
I reached into my pocket, unlocked the screen, and stared at the email from Arthur Vance, the CFO.
Arthur was Trinity’s uncle.
Arthur was the man who had introduced Trinity to the firm eight months ago.
I had hired Trinity under Arthur’s subtle recommendation to manage our regional PR campaigns.
That was how the affair had started: late-night expense reports over dirty martinis at the downtown Hyatt.
Now Arthur had frozen my accounts.
Did Arthur know?
Had Arthur discovered the double billing?
Or had Dakota contacted him before this plane even pushed back from the gate?
I looked at the cream envelope again.
The paper was rigid, containing several folded documents inside.
I leaned forward, checking the aisle.
Dakota was not in sight; the beverage carts were being restowed in the rear of the cabin.
My curiosity and terror overcame her warning.
I slipped my thumb under the edge of the wax seal.
“Miles, she told you not to open it without a witness,” Trinity warned, her eyes narrowing.
“You’re sitting right next to me,” I whispered.
“You are my witness.”
I cracked the red wax.
The seal split cleanly with a brittle snap.
I pulled out the contents.
They were not handwritten letters or tearful love notes from the past seven years.
They were financial records.
The top sheet was a bank statement from an offshore account in the Cayman Islands that I had never seen before in my life.
Beneath that was a series of wire transfers totaling four hundred and eighty thousand dollars.
Every single transfer bore my forged signature.
And every single transfer had been deposited into a shell company registered under the name: TRINITY VANCE CONSULTING LLC.
My breath caught in my throat.
I turned the page, my hands shaking so violently the paper rattled.
There was a second document: a domestic fraud complaint prepared for the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice.
The petitioner was listed as Dakota Bennett.
The defendants were listed as Miles Bennett and Trinity Vance.
“What is that?” Trinity asked, leaning over the center console, trying to see the papers.
I shoved the papers right in front of her face.
“You tell me,” I hissed, my voice shaking with raw fury.
“What the hell is Trinity Vance Consulting LLC?”
Trinity froze.
The color completely drained from her lips, leaving her skin a sickly, ashen grey.
She looked at the offshore account number, then at the wire transfer receipts.
Her throat bobbed as she tried to swallow.
“Miles, I...
where did she get that?”
“Is it real?” I demanded, grabbing her forearm.
“Did you open an offshore LLC in your name using my company’s logistics accounts?”
“Let go of my arm!” she whispered frantically, yanking her wrist away from my grip.
“Miles, you don’t understand how this works!”
“Explain it to me, Trinity!”
“Because my wife just handed me federal indictment paperwork while she is pouring ginger ale in coach!”
“Arthur set that up,” Trinity whispered, her eyes wide with terror as she leaned in close.
“Arthur told me it was standard executive bonus structuring!”
“He said you authorized it for the regional marketing contracts!”
The realization crashed over me like a tidal wave of ice water.
I hadn’t authorized any of it.
Arthur Vance had used my signature stamps while I was distracted by my affair with his niece.
Arthur had been funneling Vanguard’s operational funds out of the country through Trinity’s dummy accounts.
And Trinity had either been completely complicit, or she was the most convenient pawn in the history of corporate embezzlement.
“And Dakota knows,” I whispered, staring down at the pristine legal filings.
“Dakota has the bank logs.”
“She has the wire confirmations.”
“How did she get these?” Trinity asked, panic making her voice shrill.
“How could a flight attendant get federal banking records from the Caymans?”
“Because she wasn’t always a flight attendant,” I said, the horrifying realization finally dawning on me.
Seven years ago, before we got married, Dakota had worked for the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network as an intelligence analyst.
She had retired from the agency when her father fell ill, choosing a quieter life, eventually pursuing commercial aviation because she loved to travel.
I had forgotten.
In my arrogance, in my self-absorbed pursuit of wealth and ego, I had forgotten what my wife was capable of doing with a computer and a paper trail.
A shadow fell over our seats.
I slammed the papers against my chest and looked up.
Dakota was standing over us, holding a silver tray with two warm hand towels.
Her eyes traveled to the broken red wax on my lap.
She looked at the edges of the financial statements peeking out from behind my fingers.
She didn’t look angry.
She looked thoroughly, completely unimpressed.
“I told you that you would need an attorney when you opened that, Miles,” she said calmly.
“Dakota, what is this?” I begged, standing up halfway before the seatbelt pulled me back down.
“What did you do?”
Dakota picked up a pair of tongs, set a warm towel on Trinity’s tray table, and then set one on mine.
“I didn’t do anything, Miles,” she replied softly, leaning down so only Trinity and I could hear her words.
“You and your consultant did this to yourselves.”
“I merely collected the carbon copies before the FBI knocked on our front door in Oakridge.”
“The FBI?” Trinity gasped, dropping her champagne glass.
The crystal flute shattered against the floorboard, dark wine soaking into the grey carpet.
Dakota looked down at the mess, her brow furrowing slightly in professional annoyance.
May you like
“Be careful, Miss Vance,” Dakota said, her voice chillingly maternal.
“Turbulence is expected over the North Atlantic, and things are going to get much messier than that.”
