One day after Mary Anne returned home from the cruise, she received a phone call from her banker who asked her about a few large purchases that were made on her credit card. The transactions took place both in Canada and the US in cities she had never visited. The banker also asked her if she transferred large sums of money from her chequing account to a company she had never heard of before. Mary Anne said that she didn’t make any credit card purchases for the last few weeks. In addition, she hadn’t made any cash transfers from her chequing account for over a month. She immediately checked to see if her credit cards were stolen but they were both safely inside her wallet.
Anyway, Mary Anne spoke with Mark several times while she was on the cruise as she wanted to be updated on his son’s condition. The last time she spoke with him, he told her his son needed to have surgery in the US and therefore he wouldn’t be in Victoria anytime soon.
However, a few days after her conversation with the bank, her real estate friend called and told her there were rumors that the company that was building the luxury condos in Victoria had run into financial difficulties. He said he wasn’t 100% sure this information was correct. Thus, he suggested she talk to her boyfriend about it, as he was knowledgeable about the company and had also invested in a unit. Mary Anne told him his information had to be wrong because if Mark knew something like this was happening, he would have told her immediately.
Later on, Mary Anne tried to reach Mark several times but she went to voice mail every time she called him. She left him several messages but he didn’t call her back. She was sure that something happened to his son. She tried to call the development company the day after, but there was no answer there either. Mary Anne started to worry as she had invested a lot of money in the condo which was supposed to be ready soon.
A few days later an announcement was published in the newspaper that the development company declared bankruptcy. Mary Anne felt as though she would have a heart attack. Jackie was also frustrated. Neither of them knew what to do. Mary Anne didn’t want to say anything to her children as she didn’t want them to worry. She decided to keep the news to herself for a while.
Several buyers tried to break into the job site and take possession of their units after the announcement went public. Many people put their life’s savings into the condos as they were promised the suite would produce a high return for them. People were demonstrating for days at the job site and the ones who broke into the buildings were forcefully thrown out by police.
Nobody knew why the company, which was thought to be in good financial shape had to suddenly declare bankruptcy. It took some time but the picture slowly became clearer. It turned out that a senior employee embezzled company funds. This person was the director of finance. He wasn’t the only one defrauding the company, there were two others involved as well. The two aroused the suspicions of management who decided to open an investigation. When the suspects had their backs against the wall, they exposed the mastermind.
The director of finance couldn’t be found. Therefore, the police asked the public for help in locating him. They put his picture in the newspapers and online and received dozens of phone calls from citizens claiming to have seen him. But unfortunately, all of these leads turned out to be false.
Mary Anne didn’t see the newspaper the day the police published the pictures of the director of finance. She usually reads the paper when she comes home from work. Nevertheless, this was the end of the term at school and she was very busy this time of year. Jackie and Mary Anne’s children had been trying to call her all day after they saw the photo. But she muted the volume on her phone and wasn’t aware anyone had been trying to reach her.
When she finally looked at her phone, she saw she had several missed calls. She called her son Larry who said he had some bad news for her. He told her to find a private place at the school where she could speak with him. Then he dropped the bomb and told her Mark’s picture was made public by the police and he was suspected of embezzling millions of dollars from the real estate company where he was the director of finance.
Mary Anne was shaking when Larry gave her the news and almost passed out. Her son kept talking and said that the name next to his picture was Kevin and not Mark. At that point, Mary Anne wasn’t hearing anything he was saying. She could barely stand and all she wanted to do was throw up. When Larry noticed his mother was silent, he told her to stay where she was and that he would come to get her………..
With Experience Comes Wisdom 