Chapter 12 - RISTON’S $410,000
My first reaction was disbelief.
My second was anger at myself for having disbelief.
Nobody should be automatically exempt because I love him.
The reimbursement occurred seven years earlier.
Before our marriage.
Before his recapitalization.
Description:
LOGISTICS INTEGRATION ADVANCE.
Amount:
$410,000.
Paid from Image Reserve to Riston personally.
I showed him.
He stared.
“I remember this.”
“Good.”
“What was it?”
“I paid integration costs personally during a stalled acquisition.”
“Why personally?”
“Company card restrictions. We had consultants traveling, emergency software migration.”
“Documents?”
“I should have them.”
Should.
He found:
credit-card statements,
wire transfers,
consultant invoices,
travel bills.
Independent audit matched:
$387,000 directly.
Remaining:
$23,000 insufficiently documented.
He repaid $23,000 plus interest voluntarily.
Good.
No scandal.
But his mother’s lawyers used the item anyway.
Selective leak:
RISTON TOOK $410,000 FROM SAME RESERVE HE CALLS ABUSIVE.
Technically true.
Context omitted.
Riston did not threaten anyone.
He published nothing.
The board released an audited clarification after legal review.
That was better.
Then my own name appeared.
$52,000.
I stared.
“What?”
Foundation expense.
Two years earlier.
A community design project my firm completed.
My company had been paid.
I remembered.
Affordable family housing renovation.
Was the contract fair?
Independent bid.
Three firms.
Mine was middle price.
Board approval included conflict disclosure because I was Riston’s wife.
Good.
Still:
reviewed.
No exemption.
The audit found proper.
That experience changed me.
I understood how frightening independent scrutiny feels even when you believe you acted correctly.
It also made me appreciate why Shawna? Grandmother no name. Why Riston’s mother hated it.
But discomfort is not injustice.
The forensic review deepened.
Nine-year Image Reserve:
$12.4 million total flows.
Most legitimate.
Marketing-linked charitable campaigns.
Emergency philanthropy.
Donor events.
Company reimbursements.
The clearly problematic pool narrowed to:
$1.08 million in personal/family expenses or unsupported reclassifications across multiple people.
Of that, Riston’s mother directly authorized or benefited from approximately $740,000.
Some already repaid.
Marlowe disputed amounts separately.
That was the correct number.
Not $12.4 million.
Then investigators found:
a foundation board certification signed by Riston’s mother declaring no private benefit.
Same year as personal expenses.
Potential false statement.
More serious.
And a file-reset request from her personal assistant to the IT contractor:
Mrs. Sutton wants the foundation laptop scrubbed before Carys’s team takes it.
There.
Evidence destruction became clearer.
The assistant claimed “scrubbed” meant reset for reassignment.
Maybe.
But timing:
after security deactivated badge,
before audit preservation notice?
The notice was sent at 6:15 a.m.
Reset request:
8:02 a.m.
After.
That mattered.
Prosecutors issued subpoenas.
No arrest yet.
Then Riston’s mother called him personally for the first time in weeks.
He answered on speaker with counsel approval.
Her voice:
“Drop this.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“No.”
“You’re destroying your father’s name.”
Riston looked at me.
Then said:
“Dad protected you once. That is why we’re here.”
Silence.
Then:
“You think she’ll stay once you’re not useful?”
Meaning me.
Riston closed his eyes.
“Mom.”
“Women like Carys—”
He hung up.
No speech.
Good.
Then he looked at me.
“I’m sorry.”
“For her?”
“For every time I let that sentence exist in our life because I thought ignoring it was stronger than confronting it.”
That apology reached somewhere the others had not.
But our active conflict was not over.
The next morning, prosecutors requested an interview with Riston.
May you like
Not as witness only.
As a person whose signatures appeared on historical reserve certifications.
