Chapter 6 - The Woman Who Thought She Was Moving In
We did not hear the second half that afternoon.
Before Marcus could reopen the file, the doorbell rang.
A courier stood on the porch holding a thick overnight envelope addressed to Eleanor Vance.
The return label read DOMINION CREST CAPITAL.
Marcus signed for it.
No one spoke while he opened the package.
Inside was a formal notice of default.
Northstar Meridian Ventures had missed two required payments on a loan with an outstanding balance of one million four hundred sixty thousand dollars.
The lender was accelerating the debt.
The notice also demanded preservation of all collateral and guarantor assets.
My mouth went dry.
"Why send this to Eleanor?"
Marcus kept reading.
"Because she is listed as a guarantor."
Nadia swore under her breath.
"She never guaranteed Northstar."
"I know."
"Could Julian have used an old power of attorney?"
"Not legally after revocation."
"Could he have done it anyway?"
Marcus turned to the signature page.
His face changed.
I knew before he showed me.
Eleanor Vance's name appeared beneath a guarantee dated thirteen months earlier.
The signature looked like hers.
Almost.
I had watched Eleanor sign pharmacy receipts, checks, birthday cards, consent forms, and tax documents for three years.
Her capital E leaned slightly left.
The E on the guarantee leaned right.
Her final r in Eleanor always rose.
This one fell.
"That's not her signature."
Marcus nodded.
"I don't believe it is."
Nadia took a photograph of the page.
"If this is forged, the inheritance issue just became the least of Julian's problems."
My phone rang again.
This time the caller was Chloe.
I stared at the screen.
"Why is she calling me?"
Marcus took the envelope from my hands.
"Answer and do not volunteer information."
I stepped into the kitchen and picked up.
"Hello?"
For several seconds I heard only the baby fussing.
Then Chloe spoke.
Her voice was quieter than it had been in my house.
"Is Julian there?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
She exhaled.
"Can I come over?"
I almost laughed.
Twelve hours earlier she had called the house run-down.
Now she sounded afraid to be in a hotel room with the man who had promised it to her.
"Why?"
"I need to ask you something."
"Ask me now."
A pause.
"Did Julian tell you he was still employed by Vance Global when he moved to Canada?"
The question confused me.
Vance Global was not our family's company despite the name.
It was a multinational logistics firm Julian had joined six years into our marriage.
His assignment in Toronto was supposedly a promotion within its strategy division.
"Yes."
Chloe whispered something I could not hear.
"What?"
"He wasn't."
My grip tightened around the phone.
"What do you mean?"
"Can I come over?"
Twenty-five minutes later, Chloe stood on my porch without Julian.
She carried the baby in a gray carrier and had changed into jeans and a sweater.
Without the airport coat, sunglasses, and expensive heels, she looked much younger.
She still looked at me defensively.
I still did not trust her.
Those two things could both be true.
I let her into the kitchen because I did not want her near Eleanor's study.
Marcus and Nadia stayed in the dining room within earshot.
Chloe sat at the small breakfast table.
The baby slept between us in his carrier.
"His name is Noah," she said.
I looked down at him.
"I didn't ask."
"I know."
Her eyes dropped.
"But everyone keeps calling him the baby like he's evidence."
That sentence softened something in me despite myself.
None of this was Noah's fault.
"Noah is a good name."
Chloe nodded once.
Then she looked at me.
"Julian told me you knew about us."
I said nothing.
"He said your marriage had been over for years."
"It had not."
"He said you only stayed legally married because his mother wanted someone managing the house."
"I was his wife."
Chloe pressed her lips together.
"He called you the house manager."
I remembered her words at the airport.
I thought she had invented the insult herself.
Apparently Julian had given it to her.
"That explains a lot."
She flushed.
"I shouldn't have said it like that."
It was not an apology.
It was close enough for the moment.
"What about his job?"
Chloe stared at the table.
"He was fired from Vance Global five months after he arrived in Toronto."
The room seemed to shift.
"Why?"
"He told me restructuring."
"And you believed him?"
"At first."
"When did you meet him?"
She hesitated.
"Eight months after he moved."
My chest tightened.
Not because I still wanted him.
Because timelines were becoming weapons.
"So he was already unemployed."
"He had started Northstar."
"With my mother-in-law's money."
Chloe looked up sharply.
"He said Eleanor invested."
"She didn't."
"I know that now."
"Do you?"
Her eyes hardened.
"I came here, didn't I?"
"You came here because the house isn't his."
That hit its target.
Chloe leaned back.
"You think I'm a gold digger."
"I think you walked into a dead woman's memorial and complained about the house you expected to inherit through a man who was still married."
Her face reddened.
"He told me you were divorcing him."
"He told me he was working in Canada."
We stared at each other.
For the first time, neither of us had a useful insult left.
Chloe looked down at Noah.
"He promised me stability."
"He promised me the same thing."
"He said Northstar was about to close a major deal."
"Maybe it is."
"It isn't."
Her voice became almost inaudible.
"The company is collapsing."
I leaned forward.
"How do you know?"
"Because two weeks ago a man came to our condo and threatened to take everything."
"Who?"
"A lender."
"Dominion Crest?"
Her head snapped up.
That was answer enough.
"What did he say?"
"That Julian had thirty days to cure a default."
"Why didn't you tell Marcus this morning?"
"I didn't know who Marcus was."
"You knew Julian was in trouble."
"I knew the company was in trouble."
She swallowed.
"Julian said the inheritance would fix it."
There it was.
The real reason he had come home now.
Not remorse.
Not his mother.
Not even the divorce.
A deadline.
"How much did he think he was getting?"
"At least three million."
"And the house."
Chloe closed her eyes briefly.
"And the house."
The baby moved in the carrier.
She reached down automatically and rested two fingers against his chest.
"He told me we'd sell the Queens property, pay Dominion, and use the rest to relaunch Northstar."
I felt sick.
Eleanor's home had already been converted into numbers in Julian's mind.
A sale price.
A loan payoff.
A relaunch.
"Did he tell you his mother was sick?"
Chloe's hand stopped on Noah's blanket.
"He said she was difficult."
I almost stood up.
She continued quickly.
"He said you exaggerated her health problems to keep him emotionally trapped."
My chair scraped the floor.
Noah startled.
I forced myself back down.
Chloe looked ashamed now.
"There is more."
"Of course there is."
She took out her phone.
"Last night, after we left, I looked through old messages."
She scrolled for several seconds.
Then she turned the screen toward me.
It was a message from Julian dated ten months earlier.
The text read, Mom finally agreed to guarantee the bridge loan.
Below it, Chloe had replied with a heart.
A second message from Julian followed.
Once the money clears, we stop living like we're waiting for permission.
I stared at the date.
It was three weeks after Eleanor had revoked his power of attorney.
"Did you ever speak to Eleanor?"
Chloe shook her head.
Then stopped.
"Once."
My skin prickled.
"When?"
"I don't remember exactly."
"Try."
"Maybe ten or eleven months ago."
The ICU call.
The woman's voice.
Baby.
"What happened?"
Chloe looked uncomfortable.
"Julian's phone rang while he was in the shower."
"You answered it?"
"He had been getting nonstop calls."
"What did you say?"
Her eyes dropped.
"I said he was busy."
"Who was on the phone?"
"An older woman."
My mouth went dry.
"Did she give her name?"
Chloe nodded slowly.
"Eleanor."
I gripped the edge of the table.
"And what did you say to her?"
Chloe's face drained of color.
"I told her Julian had a family now and she needed to stop calling every hour."
The kitchen became so quiet that I could hear Noah breathing.
Chloe looked at me with tears gathering in her eyes.
"I thought she was an overbearing mother."
I could barely speak.
"She was calling from the hospital."
Chloe covered her mouth.
Behind us, Marcus stepped into the kitchen.
He had heard everything.
He held the Dominion guarantee in one hand.
"Ms. Mercer," he said, "I need you to preserve every message you have with Julian."
She looked at him in alarm.
"Why?"
Marcus placed the guarantee on the table.
"Because Eleanor's signature appears on a loan Julian told you she had agreed to guarantee."
Chloe stared at the page.
"And?"
"And Eleanor did not sign it."
Her eyes moved from the document to me.
Then to her sleeping son.
Then back to Marcus.
"What happens if Julian forged it?"
May you like
Marcus's answer was calm.
"Then your child's father may have returned to New York expecting an inheritance and walked directly into a fraud investigation."
