Chapter 6 - The First Missing Payment Was Small Enough to Ignore
The forensic accountant started with ordinary transactions.
At first, nothing looked shocking.
Audiology invoice.
$2,400.
Legitimate.
Speech evaluation.
$950.
Legitimate.
Medical travel reimbursement.
$1,180.
Plausible.
Then came a strange charge:
Specialized acoustic therapy equipment — $8,700.
Rocco had never seen any such equipment.
Another:
Home auditory adaptation consultation — $6,200.
Never happened.
Then:
Private pediatric accessibility retreat — $12,400.
Noah had never attended one.
The vendor receiving those payments was called Hale Adaptive Solutions.
Marcus insisted it had nothing to do with him.
Technically, he was right.
The company belonged to his cousin.
Then auditors traced payments further.
Large portions returned through consulting fees to another entity.
That entity had paid Victoria.
Total suspicious amount over fourteen months:
Approximately $143,000.
Not all necessarily stolen.
But enough unsupported spending existed to demand explanation.
Rocco stared at the spreadsheet.
Then at the description of one charge.
Replacement hearing system — $9,600.
Noah had never received it.
His actual hearing aid had been partly paid by Rocco’s insurance and partly by Rocco personally.
Yet the trust had been billed anyway.
Someone had been using his son’s hearing loss as a source of invoices.
That made Victoria crushing the hearing aid under her heel feel even uglier.
May you like
The device she destroyed was connected to the very medical condition she and Marcus had been monetizing on paper.
---
