My assistant, Olivia, arrived at the office carrying an invoice she had discovered in an archived company folder. It came from Northbridge Advisory and listed a Delaware mailbox as its registered address. The attached consulting agreement carried my electronic signature, dated on a Saturday when I had been attending a business convention in Chicago. Olivia remembered because she had arranged my travel and knew I hadn’t been near the office. I studied the document carefully. The signature looked convincing, but the agreement itself was unfamiliar. Someone had used my identity to authorize a transaction I had never approved.

Daniel arrived later that afternoon and began reviewing our financial records. After several hours, he discovered approximately $286,000 in questionable expenditures spread across eighteen months. The payments were divided into smaller transfers to unfamiliar marketing agencies and administrative service providers. Daniel warned me not to jump to conclusions. We needed to establish who had initiated the payments and where the money had gone. Still, the pattern was difficult to ignore. I remembered Landon frequently asking about company expenses and requesting access to reports he claimed were necessary for household planning. At the time, I had trusted him completely. Now those conversations seemed different.