Chapter 4
Camille hired her own lawyer before agreeing to further interviews.
Smart.
Pearl & Pine was small but real.
It sold designer pet carriers, bowls, blankets, travel kits, and grooming accessories through luxury boutiques and online.
Annual revenue:
About $1.7 million.
Not enough to support a $4.6 million hotel contract comfortably.
But a hotel rollout could transform it.
Doreen had encouraged Camille for years.
Sometimes too much.
Fairmont Crest had already paid Pearl & Pine $410,000 for pilot inventory, design consulting, photography, and guest research.
Taryn knew about roughly half.
The rest had been approved through Doreen’s chair-level “brand innovation” budget.
Again:
Not automatically fraudulent.
The prices were the issue.
A ceramic dog bowl costing Pearl & Pine $28 wholesale was billed to the hotels at $94.
A travel blanket costing $41 became $138.
Design margin could explain part.
Not all.
Taryn had demanded outside benchmarking.
That was why she blocked the chain-wide contract.
Camille admitted:
“Doreen told me you were trying to kill the business.”
“I asked for bids.”
“That’s what I told her.”
“Did she listen?”
Camille gave a humorless smile.
“You know her.”
Then Melissa asked about Lula’s birthday.
Camille looked ashamed.
“Doreen said it would be funny.”
“What would?”
“Giving Pearl the big cake first.”
“Did she say Lula would have no cake?”
“No.”
“Did she tell you the gifts around Pearl were paid for by the hotels?”
“I learned later.”
“Why didn’t you stop it once you saw Lula’s table empty?”
Camille looked down.
“I thought Doreen was making a point to Taryn.”
Taryn’s expression hardened.
“What point?”
“That family benefits come through loyalty.”
There it was.
Camille continued quickly.
“I’m not saying I agreed.”
“You stayed.”
“Yes.”
“You held your dog while a seven-year-old’s birthday was turned into your product launch.”
Camille’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
That answer was better than excuses.
Then investigators asked about Fairmont Crest’s finances.
Camille knew very little.
But she remembered Doreen saying something after Taryn rejected the full contract.
“Once Friday closes, nobody will care about a few pet bowls.”
Melissa looked at Taryn.
Friday again.
“Anything else?”
Camille thought.
“She said the whole company would breathe differently after Friday.”
That phrasing stayed with Taryn.
Meanwhile, the independent controller began tracing the party invoice.
The $18,700 had been charged to “Executive Retention / Lender Hospitality Preparation” because Doreen’s assistant instructed accounting to place “all launch visibility costs this month” into one temporary project code.
Not only Lula’s party.
Several expenses sat there.
A lender dinner.
Executive cars.
A corporate suite.
A photography contract.
Pearl & Pine product samples.
Total:
$327,000.
Again, not necessarily fraud.
But it inflated neither ordinary marketing nor payroll expenses in the way management reports normally displayed them.
The code was scheduled to be reclassified after Friday.
Taryn asked:
“Why after Friday?”
The controller answered:
“Because that’s what the note says.”
Who wrote the note?
Leonard Shaw.
CFO.
Hold classification through closing. Clean after.
Taryn stared.
Different account.
May you like
Same phrase she had heard too often in family businesses.
After.
