Chapter 3 - The Audit of Irresponsibility
By 8:00 AM on Monday morning, the corporate headquarters of Camden Logistics—a slightly outdated brick building near the industrial rail yards—was crawling with external accountants wearing identical grey suits. Maris sat in the primary executive office, the office that had belonged to her father for thirty-four years. The walls, previously decorated with hunting trophies and framed photographs of Franklin, Colton, and Derek holding high school football helmets, had been completely cleared.
The door flew open, and Franklin stormed in, followed closely by Colton, who was frantically clutching a leather briefcase.
"Get out of my chair, Maris!" Franklin yelled, his voice echoing through the glass partitions of the office. "I’ve already called our corporate attorney. He’s filing an injunction! You can't just walk in here with a handful of debt documents and claim you own forty years of history!"
Maris didn't look up from her tablet. She calmly finished entering a string of code, set the device down, and leaned back, lacing her fingers together.
"Your corporate attorney dropped your account at 6:00 AM, Franklin," Maris said smoothly. "Mainly because Vance & Associates—my legal team—informed him that representing you further would constitute a conflict of interest, seeing as your firm owes their partnership three quarters of back-dated retainer fees. You haven't paid your own lawyers in nine months."
Colton stepped forward, his arrogance replaced by a frantic, sweating desperation. "Maris, look, we’re family. Okay? Yeah, maybe Derek and I made some bad plays, but we can fix this. We just need a short-term injection from your tech company. We can split the profits fifty-fifty! You don't even know how to run a logistics firm—you're just a data monkey!"
Maris let out a short, quiet laugh that caused Colton to freeze.
"I don't know how to run a logistics firm?" Maris stood up, walking over to the floor-to-ceiling whiteboards that lined the left wall. With a black marker, she began drawing a massive, highly complex algorithmic flow chart detailing fuel consumption variances, automated routing protocols, and regional warehouse allocation matrices.
"For the past three years," Maris said as she wrote, her hand moving with a precision that was terrifying to watch, "your company has lost twelve percent of its margins due to outdated human routing. Your drivers are idling for hours at Pier 9 because you don't use automated scheduling. I didn't build just a 'software system,' Colton. I built the exact infrastructure that your primary competitor used to steal your three largest contracts last month."
She dropped the marker into the tray with a sharp click. "I know every bolt, every route, and every dollar that moves through this state. While you were spending your inheritance on golf memberships, I was studying your failure."
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The head forensic accountant, a sharp-faced woman named Elena, entered the office holding a thick blue folder. "Ms. Camden, the preliminary audit of the payroll accounts is complete. We found thirteen separate instances of 'ghost employees' registered under various family pseudonyms. In total, over four hundred thousand dollars has been siphoned from the operational fund over the last two years into personal accounts tied to Derek Camden."
Maris looked directly at her father. "The federal maritime commission doesn't look kindly on payroll fraud, Franklin. Especially when it involves state shipping grants."
