Old company ledgers.
Contracts.
And a sealed envelope with Katherine's name.
She stopped.
James saw.
“I can wait outside.”
“No.”
“You sure?”
She nodded.
Her hands felt strangely unsteady.
She opened it.
The letter began:
Kat, if you're reading this because the Ferrari finally forced you to slow down, then at least the old girl did one useful thing after I was gone.
Katherine closed her eyes.
His voice lived inside the sentence.
Dry.
Teasing.
Impossible.
She kept reading.
I have spent most of my life teaching you to move quickly. That was my mistake. Speed is useful in business because everyone else is afraid to decide. But speed makes you vulnerable when somebody else chooses the direction.
James remained silent.
Katherine read.
Robert wrote that during his final year, he discovered irregularities inside Vaughn Mobility's supplier acquisition program.
Nothing definitive at first.
Consulting fees.
Inflated component contracts.
Payments moving through secondary vendors.
He commissioned quiet internal reviews.
Each time he asked finance for deeper records, problems disappeared before auditors arrived.
He suspected someone inside senior leadership had advance knowledge.
He did not write a name.
Instead:
I do not know yet who I can trust. That includes people I have trusted for years.
Katherine stopped.
James said softly:
“You okay?”
“No.”
He nodded.
No false comfort.
She continued.
Robert had copied records outside company systems.
Invoices.
Vendor lists.
Wire confirmations.
Board memos.
He stored them here because he believed corporate digital archives had been compromised.
Then one sentence:
The Ferrari's restoration file contains the bridge.
Katherine looked up.
James frowned.
“What bridge?”
She handed him the letter.
He read.
They opened box after box.
Old repair invoices for the Ferrari.
Parts orders.
Restoration photographs.
Insurance valuations.
At first Katherine saw nothing.
James did.
He arranged invoices across the concrete floor.
“Look.”
He pointed at a vendor name.
Crown Precision Imports.
Another.
Crown Heritage Components.
Another.
CPI Logistics.
Katherine frowned.
“What?”
James said:
“All these invoices came through different restoration shops.”
“So?”
“Same formatting.”
She looked closer.
He was right.
Invoice numbers varied.
Company names varied.
Addresses varied.
But line-item descriptions followed identical phrasing.
James pulled out his phone.
Search.
Crown Precision Imports was registered to a holding company.
Crown Heritage Components dissolved two years earlier.
CPI Logistics shared an address with an accountant's office.
Katherine felt the room shrinking.
She called her corporate counsel, Daniel Cho.
Not Adrian.
Daniel.
She trusted Daniel because her father had once complained he was “too principled to enjoy money.”
Within an hour, Daniel confirmed all three entities had indirect links to one investment partnership.
Cross Capital Ventures.
Adrian Cross had disclosed an interest in Cross Capital twelve years earlier.
He claimed to have divested.
Public filings showed he had.
But Mason Cross now controlled a related entity.
Katherine sat on a storage box.
James crouched nearby.
“Still think I'm convenient?”
She looked at him.
“That was before you found my dead father's secret archive.”
“Fair.”
She rubbed her forehead.
James said:
“You don't have proof Adrian did anything.”
“I know.”