Chapter 15 - The Early Morning Audit
The next morning, the sun rose over the Atlanta suburbs in a brilliant explosion of gold and violet. I woke up around 6:30 AM, feeling more rested than I had in months. I poured myself a cup of dark roast coffee, grabbed my laptop, and sat out on Vanessa’s back patio, enjoying the cool morning breeze before diving into a few remote client files I needed to wrap up before Monday.
As I sipped my coffee and scrolled through a preliminary balance sheet for a mid-sized logistics firm, my phone buzzed on the patio table.
It was an unknown number with a local area code.
I frowned, glancing at the clock in the corner of my laptop screen. 6:45 AM. Who on earth was calling this early?
I swiped to answer. "Hello? This is Nora."
"Nora? Oh, thank God, you're awake!"
The voice on the other end was frantic, breathy, and unmistakably panicked. It took me a second to place it, but then the grating, nasal cadence clicked into place.
It was Aunt Linda. Not our immediate aunt, but our distant, perpetually dramatic cousin-in-law Linda—the one who lived three counties over and only ever called weddings, funerals, or when she needed someone to co-sign a car loan.
"Linda?" I said, my voice dropping into professional caution. "What's wrong? Why are you calling at six in the morning?"
"It’s an emergency, Nora! A total catastrophe!" Linda wailed, her voice cracking. "I’m standing outside the regional bank downtown, and my corporate debit card was just declined! They froze all my accounts! The teller is talking about federal compliance holds and forensic asset freezes! Nora, what did you do?!"
May you like
I sat up straight in my patio chair, my coffee sloshing slightly over the rim of my mug. "Linda, slow down. What are you talking about? Why would your accounts be frozen?"
"Because of Brenda!" Linda cried, sounding like she was on the verge of hyperventilation. "Brenda called me an hour ago screaming bloody murder! She said you tore apart her family, and then—and then she said you accessed the community fundraising registry and flagged *all* of our accounts for suspicious activity! Nora, my business account is linked to that registry! I can't make payroll! My employees are going to show up in two hours, and I won't have cash to pay them!"
