Chapter 10 - Rebecca Sloan
Rebecca agreed to meet only after Detective Shaw spoke with her directly.
This time there was no parking garage.
No anonymous location.
No instructions to come alone.
We met in a private conference room at the police department at 3:30 that afternoon.
Rebecca was the woman from outside the storage office.
Up close, she looked exhausted rather than mysterious.
She wore a charcoal blazer, no jewelry, and kept both hands wrapped around a paper cup she never drank from.
She looked at me for a long moment.
“I’m sorry.”
I did not know which part she meant.
“For the emails?”
“For not contacting you sooner.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I spent seven years making sure Julian couldn’t find me.”
Her voice was steady, but her fingers tightened around the cup.
“And when I saw your name on the Ashwood paperwork, I told myself it wasn’t my problem.”
“What paperwork?”
Rebecca looked at Detective Shaw.
“I monitor public filings connected to Mercer entities.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because once someone steals your identity, you stop believing silence means they stopped.”
I understood that instantly.
She continued.
“A development notice for Ashwood listed Mercer Home Solutions.”
“I found that too.”
“Then a financing notice referenced a private guarantor with initials A.C.B.”
My full married name was Audrey Cole Bennett.
“I knew Julian had married someone named Audrey.”
Rebecca looked down.
“I searched public records.”
“And found my townhouse.”
“Yes.”
“Why send anonymous emails instead of telling police?”
“I tried police seven years ago.”
Shaw did not react defensively.
“What happened?”
Rebecca breathed in slowly.
“I discovered two loans I never authorized.”
“Were they notarized by Peter Voss?”
“Yes.”
“I reported them.”
“What did Julian say?”
“That I had signed the documents and forgotten because I was under psychiatric treatment.”
My stomach twisted.
“Were you?”
“I was seeing a therapist for anxiety.”
She gave a bitter laugh.
“Mostly because of him.”
The room stayed silent.
“He had copies of appointment reminders.”
“How?”
“He had access to my email.”
“He used them as proof you were unstable.”
“Yes.”
I thought of Julian calling HR.
Eleanor telling Dad I barely slept.
The same script had been rehearsed years before me.
Rebecca continued.
“Peter produced notarized acknowledgments.”
“Did you sign them?”
“No.”
“Could you prove it?”
“Not then.”
She swallowed.
“One document was supposedly signed while I was visiting my sister in Vermont, but Julian said I had signed it earlier and Peter had corrected the date.”
“What happened to the investigation?”
“It stalled.”
“And the money?”
“I paid part of it just to save my credit.”
I felt anger rise for a woman I had known less than ten minutes.
“What made you leave?”
Rebecca’s face changed.
“Eleanor.”
I leaned forward.
“What did she do?”
“She came to my apartment after I told Julian I was going to an attorney.”
“What did she say?”
Rebecca stared at the table.
“She told me women like me confused independence with leverage.”
The phrase sounded exactly like Eleanor.
“She said Julian had made mistakes but I was forcing him into desperate decisions.”
Rebecca looked at me.
“Then she told me if I embarrassed the family, they would make sure every employer I ever had knew I was unstable and dishonest.”
My chest tightened.
“She threatened your job too.”
“Yes.”
“What about Caroline Ames?”
Rebecca’s eyes shifted to Shaw.
“You found Caroline’s name?”
“In Peter’s journal.”
Rebecca looked frightened.
“What happened to her?” I asked.
“I never met her.”
“Then why did you tell me to ask Peter?”
“Because he once mentioned her when he was drunk.”
“What did he say?”
“That Caroline should have taken Eleanor’s deal.”
The exact phrase from the anonymous text I had received.
You should have taken the deal.
Cold moved through me.
“What deal?”
“I don’t know.”
Rebecca set the cup down.
“But I looked her up after I left Julian.”
“And?”
“She owned a small house in Durham.”
“Owned?”
“It was transferred to a company connected to Eleanor about twelve years ago.”
“Did Caroline sell it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What happened to her?”
“She moved to Florida.”
“Alive?”
“As far as I know.”
The relief was immediate.
The pattern was still monstrous, but not what my imagination had begun inventing.
Rebecca reached into her bag slowly and removed an old digital voice recorder.
Detective Shaw held up a hand.
“Before you give us that, tell me what it contains.”
“A conversation with Eleanor.”
“When?”
“Seven years ago.”
“Was Eleanor aware of the recording?”
“No.”
Lena asked about North Carolina consent law.
Shaw said one-party recording was generally lawful if Rebecca was a participant, subject to evidentiary review.
Rebecca slid the recorder across the table.
“I kept it because it was the only proof I had that I wasn’t imagining what was happening.”
Shaw did not play it immediately.
She logged it as evidence first.
Then, with Rebecca’s consent, she connected headphones and listened.
Her face changed around the two-minute mark.
She removed the headphones.
“There’s a section you all need to hear.”
She routed the audio through a small speaker.
Eleanor’s younger voice filled the room.
Calm.
Measured.
Almost maternal.
“Jason gets emotional when he feels cornered.”
Rebecca’s recorded voice answered.
“His name is Julian.”
A pause.
Then Eleanor laughed.
“Names are paperwork.”
Every hair on my arms rose.
The recording continued.
“You benefited from what he built for you.”
“I didn’t ask him to take loans in my name.”
“Then sign the release and stop pretending this is theft.”
“It is theft.”
Eleanor’s voice became colder.
“You have a house, a career, and a reputation.”
A pause.
“Those are all assets, Rebecca.”
Another pause.
“And assets can be moved.”
Rebecca’s hands shook on the table.
I understood why she had kept the recording.
It was not a confession to every crime.
It was worse in another way.
It revealed Eleanor’s worldview.
People were assets.
Homes were assets.
Reputations were assets.
Everything could be moved.
The recording continued.
Rebecca said she would go to police.
Eleanor answered with a line that made Dad sit forward.
“Peter will verify every signature.”
Then she added:
“And Warren knows how to make a frightened woman look unreliable.”
Lena’s head snapped toward the speaker.
“Warren?”
Rebecca nodded.
“Warren Pike.”
Julian’s current divorce lawyer.
The same lawyer photographed with Peter six months earlier.
Lena stood.
“This creates a conflict issue.”
Shaw paused the audio.
Rebecca looked confused.
“Why?”
“Because Pike isn’t just Julian’s new attorney.”
I answered before Lena could.
“He was part of the strategy seven years ago.”
The room went quiet.
Rebecca gave a grim nod.
“He wrote the settlement agreement Julian tried to make me sign.”
“What settlement?” I asked.
“I would accept responsibility for the loans in exchange for Julian releasing any claim to my house.”
I stared at her.
“That’s what they’re doing to me.”
“Not exactly.”
She looked at me with something close to pity.
“They learned from me.”
The words hit hard.
“They didn’t forge a lien against my house first.”
“They did with mine.”
“They didn’t build a fake employment complaint first.”
“They did with mine.”
“They didn’t have a development project waiting for cash.”
“They do now.”
Rebecca leaned back.
“You are version two.”
I thought of the journal.
“No.”
“What?”
“There are other names.”
I told her about Caroline Ames and Stephen Ward.
Rebecca’s face went white.
“I never knew about Stephen.”
Shaw wrote down both names.
“We’ll find them.”
My phone buzzed in my purse.
Lena glanced at me.
I checked it.
The message came from a number I recognized immediately.
Julian.
The protective order prohibited him from contacting me.
The text contained no greeting.
No apology.
Only a photograph.
It showed Dad’s house from across the street.
The timestamp was eleven minutes old.
May you like
Below it, Julian had written one sentence.
YOU BROUGHT REBECCA BACK, SO I BROUGHT YOUR PAST BACK TOO.
