Back at Halcyon House, the club manager explained that the membership belonged to Brennan Freight and I was the authorized signatory. Every attempted charge had been recorded. Colin insisted the company was practically his and accused me of being petty. That was when Isabelle looked at him differently. “You told me the company was yours,” she said.

Colin claimed it had only been a figure of speech. Isabelle quietly put down her napkin, requested her coat, and left. On her way out, she told the waiter, “Write down everything you remember about tonight.” By the following morning, she was speaking with the provincial fraud unit. She handed investigators messages in which Colin had bragged about his arrangement with a vendor that paid him for doing nothing. Three weeks later, investigators searched Colin’s condominium and a storage unit he’d rented under his mother’s maiden name. Northgate’s accounts were frozen, and forensic accountants began following every dollar.