Chapter 6 - An Unmarked Folder
The store felt hollow. The piano music had stopped. The air smelled of expensive perfume, stale sweat, and the cold reality of destruction.
Emily stood behind the counter, staring down at her canvas bag. Her hands were still trembling. The shock was beginning to wear off, replaced by the sheer, crushing exhaustion of the ordeal.
“Miss Carter,” Richard said quietly.
Emily looked up. “Yes, Mr. Whitmore?”
Richard walked over to the counter. He didn’t pick up the $42,000 watch. He picked up the crumpled, red-inked eviction notice that Evelyn had pulled out of her bag.
Emily felt a surge of shame. She reached forward instinctively. “Please, sir. Don’t look at that.”
Richard didn’t hand it back. He smoothed the creases with his thumb. “Your rent is three weeks past due. Two thousand one hundred dollars.”
Emily swallowed hard, her chin lifting slightly despite her humiliation. “I was planning to pay it with this month’s commission. But my commission was docked four hundred dollars by Daniel last week. I was going to speak to regional HR tomorrow.”
“Daniel docked your commission because your numbers exposed his falsifications,” Richard said, setting the letter down. “Every time you logged an honest return, it disrupted his phantom inventory cycle. You were making it harder for him to steal.”
He turned to Evelyn. “Evelyn, show me Miss Carter’s personnel file.”
Evelyn opened the tablet and handed it to Richard.
Richard began skimming through her employment records. Emily watched his eyes move across the glass screen. She expected him to look at her sales figures, her attendance records, or her references. But suddenly, Richard’s eyes stopped.
His thumb froze over the screen.
He stared at the tablet for a long, silent moment. His posture changed. The cold, unyielding titan who had just orchestrated the arrest of his own daughter seemed to vanish, replaced by a man struck by an ancient ghost.
“Your mother’s name,” Richard said, his voice suddenly rough. “It’s Diane, isn't it?”
Emily blinked, caught off guard. “Yes, sir. Diane Carter.”
“Her maiden name was Vance?”
Emily’s heart skipped a beat. “Yes. Diane Vance. How did you know that? It isn't on my tax forms.”
Richard didn’t answer immediately. He lowered the tablet, staring at Emily with an intensity that felt entirely different from before. It wasn’t the stare of an auditor looking for fraud. It was the stare of a man looking through thirty years of memory.
“Diane Vance,” Richard murmured. “Thirty-two years ago, when Aster & Rowe was just a single tailoring boutique on 4th Street, your mother was our head patternmaker.”
Emily’s eyes widened. “My mother worked for you?”
“She didn't just work for me, Emily,” Richard said, his voice dropping into a solemn, reverent tone. “She designed the first luxury collection this brand ever produced. She created the signature silk stitch that Aster & Rowe still uses on its garment tags today.”
Emily stood frozen. Her mother had always talked about working in fashion when she was young, but she had never spoken of Aster & Rowe. She had only mentioned an old job that broke her heart—a company where her designs were stolen by executive partners before she was forced out with an empty pension when she fell ill with rheumatoid arthritis.
“She… she never told me it was this store,” Emily whispered.
“Because she was pushed out,” Richard said bluntly, a dark shadow passing over his features. “My early investors—men I was too young, too arrogant, and too foolish to control—falsified copyright assignments while I was overseas securing textile supply chains. When I returned, Diane had resigned. She vanished from the industry. I spent five years trying to find her to make amends, but her family had relocated out of state.”
He looked around the magnificent, soaring boutique—the marble columns, the gilded displays, the racks of five-figure dresses.
“This entire empire was built on the foundation of your mother’s talent, Miss Carter. And thirty years later, her daughter is standing behind my register, being threatened by my spoiled child and robbed by my corrupt manager.”
Richard closed the tablet with a sharp snap.
“Evelyn,” Richard ordered.
“Yes, Mr. Whitmore?”
May you like
“Prepare my car. We are going to visit Miss Carter’s mother.”
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