Home / Romance / Not The Man She Wanted / chapter 2 The Culprit

Share

chapter 2 The Culprit

Author: Sylvia
last update publish date: 2026-03-27 22:42:08

"This is hard to believe. Are you sure you brought the check to this bank? I don't even know what to believe anymore. None of this ever makes sense to me.”

Connard questioned Josh's claims about the missing check. For months, Alvin has been making massive transactions with Ozone Bank, and not once was there a case of a missing check.

"What the fuck are you talking about? I'm no kid.

My boss personally gave me that envelope containing the check. There was no way I was going to misplace the check like a toddler. Before I stepped into this bank, I felt it in my pocket. But now, I just don't know. Gosh! My boss is going to kill me. What am I going to do now?”

Josh cried and placed his hands on the desk in frustration.

20 minutes had gone by, and they were still glued trying to figure out a better solution when Alvin called Josh on the phone.

He stared at Connard and whispered. “Now he's calling. I'm doomed! What am I going to tell him? He should be expecting me to be done cashing the check.”

Josh bemoaned as he sweats profusely despite the air conditioner being turned on.

Countless times Alvin kept calling, but not once did Josh respond. He would rather ignore the calls until he finds the check rather than give flimsy excuses, which his boss is strongly against.

"Now you need to take a chill pill. What was the last thing you recall when your boss gave you the check? Please think! That would aid our investigation.”

Connard suggested and implored Josh.

His head's spinning right now after the roller coaster. He just wishes the ground would simply open and swallow him. The situation is too heavy for him to handle.

"Okay, here's how it happened.”

Josh shut his eyes and attempted to rack his head to recall his previous moments.

"Yes, now I have a clue.”

Josh exclaimed. It took him a few minutes to finally reminisce about the event that unfolded before the check went missing mysteriously.

"Yes, let's hear it. It could provide the answer we need.

Take it slow. Put your mind at ease, and you'll surely recall everything." He tried to ease his mind in the best possible way.

"Approaching your office, some middle-aged woman bumped into me and threw my briefcase to the ground. Remember I said the check was still in my pocket before I stepped into the bank? I don't know if my assertion is wrong, but I don't think the woman would have stolen that check. How would she even think of that?”

"Now we have the information we require. You speak so well of someone you don't even know. It's hard trusting people these days, let alone strangers. Here's what we are going to do. Can you recognize this woman for the second time? I'm just going to call the security department to play the CCTV footage for the last 30 minutes. How about that?”

The manager suggested.

"Yes, of course. That will be brilliant if that's going to get us a clue.”

Josh agreed in a soft tone. The situation suddenly made him lose his voice and drained him completely. He can tell how his boss would be feeling right now. With just one call, the manager made the security department play the CCTV footage. In the video, the same janitor could be seen keeping an eye on Josh and deliberately bumping into him on purpose.

"Hold on a sec! Is that the woman who bumped into you?”

Connard asked, pointing to the bank's janitor.

"Yes, she's the one. We need to find her. This video has enough evidence needed to show that she had an ulterior motive. How do we find her?”

Josh asked in curiosity. He was hoping that the strange woman would be the answer to their problem.

"I'll just ask the security guard to bring her to my office immediately. She's our longest-serving janitor. It's weird to think she'll be capable of such,” the manager admitted as he made a few calls to bring the janitor to his office, but to his surprise, she was nowhere to be found. Someone saw her going home after she reportedly called in sick. It's all starting to make sense now. It's quite strange that someone who didn't exhibit any symptoms of sickness has suddenly gone home.

"Doesn't this mean something to you? She's going home after stealing the check. Of course, no one would be so foolish as to still be mopping dirty floors after stealing a check for $1 million. I am calling on the cops immediately to get her arrested. She's the prime suspect now.”

The manager made his assertion and called the cops. In a blink of an eye, some cops walked inside the office.

“We got a case of theft, and the prime suspect is on the run. I know her residence.

Let's go after her before she escapes without a trace,” the manager narrated after explaining to the cops alongside the CCTV footage.

Without hesitation, they all drove off to the janitor's apartment and surrounded her building. Fortunately for them, she was already planning her escape. It was too late to hide or play smart. Voluntarily, she stepped outside with her hands above her head. Seeing the manager in her house stunned her.

Out of shame, she faced the ground and couldn't stare him in the eyes. “I'm sorry. I just had to do it,” she apologizes as tears drop in her eyes.

"Fuck your apology. Where's the god-damned check?”

Josh shunned her tears. He only cares about the check.

"Here it is.”

She dipped her hand inside the purse and brought out the check.

"Take her with you. This is a criminal offense. She needs to be dealt with. A few years behind bars would do. Call whomever you know. Oops, don't forget to get a good lawyer, too. We are charging you to court.”

Josh instructed and ordered her arrest despite retrieving the check. He wanted her to suffer for putting him through pain. Now he's got plenty of questions to answer for Alvin Alejandro.

Arriving at the station, Megan was taken into custody after she was permitted to call a few people while Josh filed a lawsuit against her, the janitor. He wants to ensure she faces the full wrath of the law. During his conversation with the cops, a familiar face strolled inside the station. Jenny, the secretary of Royal Gold Mine.

"Shocked to see her?” Josh asked. “Hey, there. What are you doing here? You're supposed to be at work.”

"I should be asking that question. Well, I came to see my mom. She just called to say that she was arrested,” Jenny responded, smiling like a toddler.

"Oh, I see. Can we go see her?”

He requested.

"Yeah, sure,” Jenny responded as they walked to where her mother was arrested. Arriving there, Josh discovered a shocking bombshell.

“Is this your mom?”

Josh asked, pointing at Megan.

“Yes, you got a problem with that?” Bewildered, Jenny responded as anxiety spread on her face.

“This is unbelievable. I can't believe this is happening. What am I going to do now?” Josh cried and hit his hands against the wall to create more fear and suspense for Jenny. She was lost for words as thousands of questions plagued her mind.

“Can someone explain to me what the hell is going on here?”

She wailed in anguish.

Continue to read this book for free
Scan code to download App

Latest chapter

  • Not The Man She Wanted   Chapter 90: The Old Murder

    The second safe contained forty-seven photographs.Agent Marsh showed me three of them in a conference room at the federal building on Spring Street. He laid them on the table face-up, one at a time, the way you lay down things that need to be received slowly.The first was a photograph of the Coosa River. The bend below the big rock. Exactly where my father had described it to my mother on a Tuesday night in June when he had finally told her what he had found. Someone had been there. Someone had photographed it before my father filed his claim."When was this taken," I said."March," Marsh said. "Two months before your father filed.""He knew about the river before my father told him.""Yes.""He was already there.""Yes."The second photograph was of my father's truck. Parked at a river access point I did not recognize. Taken from a distance, through trees, without my father's knowledge.My hands were flat on the table."He was being watched," I said."From the first time he went to

  • Not The Man She Wanted   Chapter 89: The Board Meeting

    The board meeting was called for nine o'clock on a Thursday morning.Fabiola texted me at seven forty-three.I am going in. Whatever happens, the statement goes on the record today.I typed back two words.I know.The boardroom on the twenty-sixth floor of Royal Gold Mine had eighteen chairs around a table that cost more than my mother's house. Fabiola had sat in those chairs for eleven years. He knew which ones squeaked and which ones didn't. He knew which board member drank water instead of coffee and which one checked his phone under the table and thought no one noticed.He sat down at his usual place.Alvin walked in at nine oh two."Gentlemen," Alvin said, standing at the head of the table. "And ladies." A nod to the two women on the board, both of whom had been there long enough to know the nod was not respect. "I want to address what happened this week directly and without the filter of legal counsel telling me what I cannot say."He set both hands flat on the table."I have be

  • Not The Man She Wanted   Chapter 88: The Bail Hearing

    The number was seven million dollars.Renata called me at nine fourteen the next morning while I was at my mother's kitchen table, back in the house on Clement Street, the house my mother had insisted on returning to because she was Megan Knowles and she was not going to be pushed out of her own home by a man who was currently in a federal holding cell."He posted bail," Renata said.I set down the cup."When?""Forty minutes ago. His lawyers had the paperwork filed before he was processed. The bail amount is seven million. He paid it in full before noon.""Cash?""Liquid assets. It was arranged before his lawyers even arrived at the precinct. He had this planned." A pause. "He expected to be arrested, Jenny. Not this week, not this specifically, but he had a contingency. He has always had contingencies."My mother looked at me from across the table.I held up one finger. She waited."What does this mean for the case," I said."Nothing, legally. He is out on conditions. No travel outs

  • Not The Man She Wanted   Chapter 87: The Police Move

    Nobody slept. My mother sat on the couch with her tea and her hands and the specific stillness of a woman who has been waiting for something for six years and is now waiting for the last twelve hours of it. Harry was at the kitchen table with his legal pads and his phone. Fabiola had not gone back to wherever he was staying. He sat in the armchair near the window with the blue book in his jacket pocket and did not open it, just held it, the way people hold objects they have decided mean something. I sat beside my mother. None of us said much. At four thirty Harry's phone lit up. He read the message. He looked up at me. "Agent Marsh," he said. "The operator Alvin hired is in position at my mother's address. Marsh has had surveillance on him for six hours." "They are going to let him sit there," I said. "Until six. Then they move." My mother wrapped both hands around her cup. "He went to my house," she said quietly. "He went to the house where I raised Jenny." Nobody answered.

  • Not The Man She Wanted   Chapter 86: Josh Delivers The Tape

    Josh arrived at the Decatur house at ten forty-seven.He knocked twice instead of once, which was how I knew it was him and not anyone else. I had texted him the specific knock when I sent the address. Two knocks. Not a doorbell. Doorbells could be seen. Heard. Logged.I opened the door.He was still in his work clothes. His jacket was in his hand rather than on his body, the jacket of a man who had left somewhere in a hurry and carried the jacket rather than stopping to put it on. He looked at me. He looked at my stomach, which at seven months was not something anyone could miss anymore.He did not say anything for a moment."Come in," I said.Harry had taken my mother and Fabiola to the back of the house when I had texted them Josh was coming. Not because I had asked them to. Because they understood, without being told, that some conversations required fewer people in the room.Josh sat at the kitchen table.He set his phone face-up between us.He had put the recording in a shared f

  • Not The Man She Wanted   Chapter 85: The Second Attempt

    Agent Marsh was forty-three, quiet-voiced, and carried the specific kind of stillness that came from spending years in rooms where the wrong movement cost someone everything.He met us at Renata's office at three o'clock. Not the Decatur house. Not the precinct. Renata's office on the fourteenth floor of a building on Peachtree, a neutral room with a conference table and a window and no one in it who did not need to be there.He shook my hand. He shook Renata's hand. He sat down.He did not open his briefcase right away."How familiar are you," he said, "with the Delaware LLC structure your father-in-law has been using?""Familiar enough," I said. "We traced it from the GPS transmitter to the 1987 land acquisition.""We traced it further." He opened the briefcase. "Fourteen entities. All registered in Delaware over a twenty-two-year period. All using the same registered agent. All connected to the same beneficial owner through a series of holding companies that were deliberately desig

  • Not The Man She Wanted   chapter 8 Mother's Lie

    I got into the passenger seat because I did not have the strength to argue. Fabiola slid behind the wheel of my own car as if it had always belonged to him, and the way he adjusted the mirror without asking told me everything I needed to know about the next three years of my life. He pulled out of

  • Not The Man She Wanted   chapter 5 The Marriage Clause

    "I had to rush in immediately when I got your call. Where's my mother? What happened to her?” Jenny questioned the cop after arriving at the station. "Calm down, Miss Jenny. You're getting yourself worked up,” One of the cops said, attempting to console her. "Don't you dare tell me to be calm?

  • Not The Man She Wanted   chapter 4 The Twist

    "Hey, watch your steps. Have you suddenly gone blind?” Fabiola yelled at Jenny for hitting him accidentally after she dashed out of Alvin's office angrily. "Speak of the ruthless devil. Bullshit,” Jenny hissed angrily and motioned for her duty post before Fabiola could counter her words. "What

  • Not The Man She Wanted   chapter 3 The Deal

    “Mom, what's happening? Why is no one talking to me?” At that moment, she was gradually losing it. Josh wasn't ready to disclose either. The situation was way beyond him. He remained mute, planning how to select his words carefully so as not to get Jenny more upset."It's fine. I'll do the talkin

More Chapters
Explore and read good novels for free
Free access to a vast number of good novels on GoodNovel app. Download the books you like and read anywhere & anytime.
Read books for free on the app
SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP
DMCA.com Protection Status