Larkwell Services occupied a glass building north of the city and employed nearly nine hundred people.
Derek had never worked there.
Emily had never worked there.
No one in our immediate family had worked there.
Yet according to Samuel’s transcript, payments connected to my identity had originated from Larkwell.
That single fact tore apart the explanation I had been carrying.
Until then, every wrong could still be traced back to Derek.
He lied.
He forged.
He created the fake email.
He received Harrison’s reimbursements.
Martin enabled him.
Harrison failed to stop him.
But Larkwell had no reason to know Derek existed.
And still, someone there had declared that Margaret Bennett provided childcare.
I asked Samuel for the dates.
He emailed them.
There were seven payments.
All after Martin left Harrison.
The final payment had been issued fourteen months ago.
I stared at that date.
At the time, I had been watching Lily four days a week.
Derek was still receiving Harrison reimbursements then.
Which meant my identity had been used simultaneously in two benefit systems.
“Could the same childcare be claimed twice?” Emily asked.
We were sitting at my dining table again, the place where almost every new piece of this mess seemed to land.
“Not legitimately,” Samuel said through speakerphone.
“Could Derek have done it?”
“We'd need account records.”
“But he didn't work at Larkwell.”
“No.”
“Could he have used somebody else's employee account?”
“Possibly, but that would require cooperation.”
Emily crossed her arms.
“So another employee.”
“Likely.”
After the call ended, she looked at me.
“Martin.”
“Yes.”
“He copied Mom's provider profile.”
“Or someone did.”
“Who else had access?”
That was the question.
Carla agreed to meet us at Ruth's house because she no longer trusted her phone.
Ruth, delighted to finally participate in what she called “a proper scandal,” made coffee and then sat at the far end of the table with a notebook.
Carla arrived carrying a laptop.
She looked worse than the last time I had seen her.
“Are you still employed?” I asked.
“Administrative leave.”
“Paid?”
“For now.”
“Did you hire a lawyer?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
She seemed surprised.
“You think I should?”
“I think everybody should have someone protecting their interests when companies start using words like review.”
Ruth nodded approvingly.
Carla opened the laptop.
“I shouldn't have this.”
I waited.
She smiled faintly.
“I know. Stop saying that.”
She turned the screen.
It showed an old spreadsheet.
“Martin maintained a provider template library.”
“A what?” Emily asked.
“When employees had recurring caregivers, Benefits sometimes copied information forward so they didn't have to retype it.”
I leaned closer.
Rows of names.
Addresses.
Phone numbers.
Provider identifiers.
My stomach tightened.
“Is mine there?”
Carla scrolled.
Margaret Bennett.
There I was.
Not a person.
A reusable row.
Emily whispered, “Jesus.”
Carla pointed to columns.
“Look at export history.”
Several dates.
Then a file destination.
DV_MASTER_EXTERNAL.
“What does external mean?”
“I never knew.”
“Do you now?”
She nodded.
“When Martin left, he exported parts of his template library.”
“How was that allowed?”
“It wasn't.”
“Did Harrison know?”
“I don't think so.”
“Can you prove he exported it?”
“The audit log shows his user ID.”
I looked at the dates.
The final export occurred six days before Martin resigned.
“What was in the file?”
“I can't open the old export.”
“Can Harrison?”
“Yes.”
“Will they?”
She gave me a tired look.
“You know the answer.”
I did.
Only if forced.
Emily paced behind us.
“So he stole caregiver identities.”
Carla flinched.
“I don't know what he used them for.”
“Larkwell used Mom.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I think Martin used old provider records as test data when installing Larkwell’s benefits system.”
I stared at her.
“Test data?”
“That’s one possibility.”
“You're telling me my name could have been copied into another company because somebody was testing software?”
“Yes.”
“And then money was paid?”
“That should not happen with test records.”
“Yet it did.”
“Yes.”
Ruth, silent until then, spoke.
“Could an employee at Larkwell have selected Margaret from an existing provider list?”
Carla turned toward her.
“Possibly.”
“Meaning Martin may have uploaded real identities as available caregivers.”
Carla paled.
“I hadn't thought of that.”
Ruth tapped her pen.
“Well, I'm retired. I have time.”
We all looked at her.
“What?”
I almost laughed.
Then Carla began typing.
She searched the spreadsheet for other names associated with suspicious Harrison providers.
Evelyn Pierce appeared.
So did nine others.
Carla compared them with the Larkwell files she could access through public compliance disclosures.
She stopped.
“Oh no.”
“What?”
“I recognize this program code.”
She turned the laptop.
Larkwell offered a childcare marketplace benefit.
Employees could search registered providers.
My mouth went dry.
“Search?”
“Yes.”
“Was I registered?”
“I don't know.”
“We're going to find out.”
This time I did not call Larkwell myself.
My attorney, Dana Morrison, did.
Dana had begun as Emily’s divorce attorney but referred my benefits matter to a colleague in her firm. After the Larkwell discovery, she decided both cases overlapped too much to keep separate.
Within forty-eight hours, Larkwell’s compliance department responded.
They confirmed a Margaret Bennett had existed in their dependent-care provider database.
Same address.
Same phone number.
Different email.
The fake email Derek had created.
“Who enrolled me?” I asked Dana.
We were in her office.
“Larkwell says the record was imported during implementation.”
“By Martin.”
“They haven't named him.”
“Can they?”
“They're investigating.”
“What about the payments?”
Dana leaned forward.
“Seven employees used your provider profile.”
I stared at her.
Emily made a sound beside me.
“Seven?”
“Yes.”
“They claimed my mother watched their children?”
“The records say childcare services were provided by your profile.”
“I don't know these people.”
“We know.”
“How much did each receive?”
“Different amounts.”
“Who got the money?”
“The employees.”
“Not me.”
“No.”
I laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“So my identity became a coupon.”
Dana paused.
“That is an unpleasantly accurate description.”
The provider marketplace had allowed employees to designate listed caregivers for reimbursement claims. Martin’s imported data had included real caregiver identities from Harrison.
Some employees at Larkwell chose names already in the system.
Why?
That question took another week to answer.
Larkwell interviewed seven employees.
Five claimed Martin had personally advised them during onboarding.
Two said they selected my name because their actual caregivers did not want to complete verification.
One produced an email.
Dana read it to us.
“If your caregiver is reluctant to enroll, choose an existing family-care provider profile for processing purposes. The reimbursement reflects your childcare expense, not payment to the listed provider.”
Emily stood.
“He wrote that?”
“Larkwell authenticated it.”
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
“After he left Harrison.”
“Yes.”
I felt strangely calm.
The fog was lifting.
Martin’s philosophy was now obvious.
He believed benefits money belonged to employees once they incurred a general category of expense.
Documentation, to him, was an obstacle.
Names were placeholders.
Signatures were procedural marks.
Providers were administrative instruments.
If actual people stood behind those names, their consent was secondary.
“Did he profit?” I asked.
Dana looked at me.
“That is the important question.”
“Yes.”
“Larkwell paid his consulting company based partly on benefit participation metrics.”
I understood before she finished.
“The more employees used the programs, the better he looked.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“We don't know yet.”
So there it was.
Not kindness.
Not employee advocacy.
Not merely sloppy administration.
Incentive.
Martin had built a system that generated participation.
Participation generated success.
Success generated money.
And people like me became the invisible machinery.
Harrison’s outside counsel requested a meeting.
Dana advised me to attend.
We met in a conference room downtown.
Three Harrison representatives sat across from us.
The HR director.
Compliance counsel.
A risk officer whose name I immediately forgot.
They expressed concern.
They expressed regret.
They emphasized that Martin’s conduct after leaving Harrison was beyond their control.
Dana waited until they finished.
Then she placed the export log on the table.
“This occurred before he left.”
Silence.
The risk officer adjusted his glasses.
“We are reviewing the authenticity of that document.”
“Harrison’s own system generated it.”
“We are reviewing the circumstances.”
“You audited Martin for tuition reimbursement before his departure.”
Another silence.
I watched their faces.
The HR director looked angry.
Not at us.
At the fact that we knew.
Dana continued.
“You knew enough to investigate his benefit practices. You allowed him to resign. You did not preserve or restrict provider data he exported.”
“We did preserve records.”
“You did not notify providers.”
“We had no indication personal data had been misused externally.”
“You had evidence he exported it.”
“The file may have had legitimate business purpose.”
“Six days before resignation?”
The risk officer leaned forward.
“Ms. Morrison, we are willing to discuss remediation regarding Mrs. Bennett’s individual experience.”
There it was.
Individual.
My experience.
Eleven thousand seven hundred sixty dollars.
A neat box.
I spoke for the first time.
“How many names were in Martin’s export?”
He looked at me.
“We don't know.”
“Yes, you do.”
“We are still validating.”
“You know the size of the file.”
Silence.
“Was it ten?”
No answer.
“Fifty?”
Nothing.
“One hundred?”
The HR director glanced at counsel.
That glance was enough.
“More than one hundred,” I said.
Counsel raised a hand.
“We aren't prepared to confirm figures.”
Dana leaned toward me.
I ignored her.
“How many?”
Counsel sighed.
“Approximately three hundred forty provider records were included in the historical export.”
Emily whispered, “Three hundred forty.”
The number felt obscene.
Not because all had necessarily been misused.
Because nobody had told them their personal information had left the company.
I asked, “How many were real people?”
“We believe most.”
“And how many were notified?”
No answer.
“None.”
The risk officer said, “We did not determine notification was legally required at the time.”
I felt anger rise.
For once I let it.
“I did not ask what your lawyers required.”
The room went quiet.
“I asked whether you told people.”
“No,” he said.
There it was.
A clean answer.
Finally.
After the meeting, Emily and I walked three blocks before speaking.
Cars hissed over wet pavement.
At the corner, she stopped.
“Three hundred forty.”
“Yes.”
“Mom, what do we do with that?”
“I don't know.”
That was true.
The scale no longer fit inside our family.
That night, Derek called.
Not Emily.
Me.
I almost did not answer.
Then I did.
“What?”
His voice sounded strained.
“Emily won't speak to me.”
“That is her right.”
“I know.”
A pause.
“My lawyer told me about Larkwell.”
I said nothing.
“Margaret, I didn't know.”
“About Martin exporting the profiles?”
“Yes.”
“I believe you.”
He sounded surprised.
“You do?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.”
“Don't thank me.”
Silence.
“You still forged my name.”
“I know.”
“You still created the fake account.”
“I know.”
“You still gave Martin the model he later repeated.”
His breath caught.
“I didn't mean for that.”
“Intent is not magic, Derek.”
“I know.”
“No, you're beginning to.”
He was quiet.
Then he said something I did not expect.
“There were others at Harrison.”
“I know.”
“No. I mean employees Martin coached like me.”
I sat straighter.
“How many?”
“I don't know.”
“Names.”
“I don't remember all of them.”
“Remember harder.”
He exhaled.
“There was a group chat.”
Emily had entered the room behind me.
She saw my expression.
“What group chat?”
Derek hesitated.
“A private employee chat.”
“What was it called?”
Another pause.
“Free Money Club.”
The name sickened me.
“Do you still have it?”
“No.”
“Who does?”
“Maybe Troy.”
“Troy who?”
“Troy Maddox.”
Emily mouthed the name.
She knew it.
“Troy worked with you,” she said loudly.
Derek heard.
“Yes.”
“Is he still at Harrison?”
“No.”
“Where is he?”
Derek went silent.
I already knew I would dislike the answer.
“Larkwell.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 8: The Free Money Club Messages Exposed Who Spread Martin’s Method, but One Message from Derek Changed Emily’s Understanding of Everything
One Innocent Question at Sunday Dinner Made Margaret Wonder Who Had Been Putting a Price on Her Love
Part 7 of 20
One Comment on “PART 7 – Larkwell Had Never Employed Derek, Yet Margaret’s Name Was Still Generating Childcare Claims Long After the Supposed Fraud Had Ended”