Chapter 5 - The Loan I Never Signed
Dana insisted that all communications with the bank happen through the proper request and authorization channels.
Marisol could not simply open someone else's files for us, no matter how much sympathy she felt.
But she confirmed that the bank had escalated the separate identity dispute and that an unfamiliar account relationship appeared in information available on my customer profile.
We requested the supporting documents formally.
The next morning, Nathaniel called Dana's office and offered to restore the original savings if I withdrew every complaint and signed a broad release.
Dana asked for the offer in writing.
He refused.
The money that had vanished from my accounts was sixty-eight thousand, four hundred and twelve dollars and nineteen cents.
It was six years of freelance consulting work, careful saving, and declined invitations.
He spoke of it like an allowance he had generously withheld.
When Dana told him that my client wanted the money returned unconditionally, he said he would destroy me professionally.
She documented the call.
Meanwhile, Belle sent me seventeen messages in an hour.
Most were apologies.
One was an accusation that I was trying to send Dad to prison.
The last one was a photograph of a signature page.
I recognized the same fake curve in the H of my surname.
The heading read PERSONAL GUARANTY.
The borrower was Hail Advisory LLC.
The guarantor was Claire Josephine Hail.
I never guaranteed any of my father's debts.
Belle's caption said, I thought you knew.
I called her from Dana's office with Dana present.
Belle admitted she had scanned my old license and emailed it to the finance administrator, Graham Voss.
She claimed she believed I had agreed to help her father qualify for a company loan.
“Why didn't you ask me?”
“He said you'd get angry if we bothered you.”
I stared at the window overlooking the parking lot.
“That wasn't an answer.”
Belle cried and said she thought the documents were temporary.
Dana asked her whether she was willing to speak independently to investigators.
Belle said Nathaniel controlled her car lease and her housing.
Then she abruptly ended the call.
That evening a process server appeared outside Lena's building.
He carried a civil complaint filed by my father.
He accused me of unauthorized access to Hail Advisory's confidential business records and demanded an emergency order to stop me from contacting its lenders.
The complaint included the green notebook my mother had handed me.
May you like
Somebody had photographed us at the diner.
