Chapter 7 — Eighty-Six Thousand

What Damon did not know was that I had kept reading.

Redpoint Consulting had received eighty-six thousand dollars in “strategy fees” from Damon’s employer over the previous six months.

And I knew that number was poison the moment I saw it, because I recognized the vendor-approval format on the paperwork.

Damon had once — carelessly, proud of himself — asked me to glance over a purchasing policy his company was revising.

I remembered the rule, because it is the most basic rule of all: any vendor connected to an employee or an immediate relative must be disclosed in writing and approved by legal, in advance, no exceptions.