Preston’s office door opened almost immediately.
He emerged with a smile prepared for senior leadership.
“Mr. Cole.”
Then he saw Monica.
The smile disappeared.
“Mr. Taylor.”
Reginald looked at the floor.
“Why is Mrs. Taylor’s food scattered through this lobby?”
Preston glanced at Karen.
“We had a customer security matter.”
Reginald looked at Monica.
Then at Preston.
“Start at the beginning.”
Preston tried.
“A suspicious transaction was presented.”
“What transaction?”
“An eight-thousand-dollar check.”
“Written by whom?”
Preston looked at the torn pieces.
His throat moved.
“Mr. Taylor.”
Jaylen spoke.
“I wrote it.”
Silence.
“Every month,” Jaylen continued. “For eleven years.”
Karen gripped the desk.
Preston attempted recovery.
“The amount itself wasn’t necessarily the concern. The recurring nature—”
“What did compliance say?”
Reginald asked.
Preston stopped.
“We had begun the referral.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Reginald’s voice remained soft.
“What did Compliance say?”
“We hadn’t contacted them yet.”
“So no compliance officer directed an account restriction.”
“No.”
“No fraud analyst verified the check as counterfeit.”
“No.”
“No alert indicated the account was compromised.”
Preston hesitated.
“Not that I’m aware of.”
Reginald turned to Karen.
“Did you verify the issuing account?”
Karen’s lips trembled.
“I was in the process—”
“Yes or no.”
“No.”
“Did you call the customer profile number associated with Mr. Taylor?”
“No.”
“Did you ask a supervisor to contact central fraud?”
“No.”
“Did you have confirmation that this check was counterfeit?”
“No.”
“Why did you tell Mrs. Taylor it was?”
Karen began crying.
“I didn’t say definitively—”
Devon stood.
“You called her a liar.”
Karen turned.
“Devon.”
He did not sit.
“You said the check was fake before you verified anything.”
Karen stared at him.
Reginald looked toward Devon.
“Were you present for the full interaction?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ll give a statement.”
“Yes, sir.”
Reginald returned to Preston.
“Security footage.”
Preston shifted.
“Of course. We can review it privately.”
“No.”
Reginald looked around the lobby.
“We will preserve it first.”
He called Hallmark’s legal and corporate security teams.
Not to create theater.
To create custody.
Within minutes, the branch’s relevant video system was locked from routine overwrite.
No one deleted anything.
No one edited anything.
No one exported a selective clip.
Reginald also instructed the branch to preserve teller-terminal logs, account access history, internal messages, the unusual-activity referral Karen had begun, and the security contractor’s incident record.
Only after preservation did they watch the video.
Reginald did not make Monica watch.