Chapter 13 - THE FOLDER UNDER OSCAR’S ARM
The meeting ended without the confession Brenda expected me to deliver.
No one gave Chloe a key.
No one received permission to borrow against my apartment.
The bank retained copies of the disputed paperwork under its investigation procedures.
Oscar carried his folder out with a hand that shook visibly.
In the hallway, Brenda caught my sleeve.
“You're humiliating your husband.”
I pulled away.
“He can answer for himself.”
“He married you when nobody else would.”
The sentence was so rehearsed that it didn't even sound like an insult anymore.
It sounded like a belief she'd repeated for years.
David stepped between us and asked her not to contact me directly about the matter again.
She laughed.
Then she saw his expression and walked away.
That evening, investigators contacted the relevant parties separately.
I gave a recorded account of what I knew firsthand.
I also explained where my information came from when it was secondhand.
I would not risk muddying the case by pretending I'd witnessed things I hadn't.
Elise provided counsel with a written statement about the records she had seen.
She recalled a draft operating budget for Cypress Harbor, complete with projected property taxes, acquisition expenses, and a payment labeled “B.
Ross reimbursement.”
A reimbursement for what?
The answer surfaced in a copy of an invoice she had retained lawfully.
The invoice appeared to be for renovations to Brenda's house.
Its total matched the sum of several transfers I had sent over two years.
But the payee line showed an unfamiliar contractor.
I searched my old photographs.
The contractor I'd actually hired had worn a red company jacket and left me a business card.
The payee on the invoice did not match that business.
David told me that evidence of financial inconsistencies could matter, but each issue would need its own investigation and legal basis.
Later that night, a message arrived from Luke.
“I wanted to tell you.
Mom said you would overreact.”
I read it three times.
It wasn't a confession about the forgery.
It was a confession about his priorities.
I typed, “Tell me what you wanted to say.”
He did not answer for an hour.
Then he sent a photograph of our wedding day.
Beneath it he wrote, “Remember when you still trusted me?”
I placed the phone facedown.
Maya watched me from across the table.
“Don't answer the photograph,” she said.
I laughed despite myself.
Then my phone vibrated again.
The new text was from a number I didn't know.
May you like
“Ask Luke what happened to the first application.”
