CHAPTER 2 — THE MONEY TRAIL
Arthur called me seventeen times that night.
His messages changed with every attempt.
First came anger.
“You have no right to lock me out.”
Then came blame.
“You embarrassed me in front of the neighbors.”
Then came false concern.
“I know you’re emotional. Come home so we can talk.”
By midnight, his voice had softened into something almost gentle.
“Claire, I’m sorry the coffee spilled. We both know it was an accident.”
I replayed that message twice.
Not because I believed him.
Because he had finally given me exactly what Victoria said he would give me.
A lie we could compare against the evidence.
The following morning, Victoria arrived at the hotel with two coffees.
She hesitated when she saw me looking at them.
“I can get tea.”
“No,” I said. “I’m not letting him take coffee away from me too.”
She gave me a small smile and placed one cup on the desk.
Then she opened her laptop.
The forensic report covered more than two hundred pages.
Arthur had been transferring money in small amounts for nearly four years.
At first, the withdrawals were easy to miss.
Five thousand dollars.
Eight thousand.
Twelve thousand.
He moved the funds through consulting companies with respectable names and nonexistent employees.
Then the transfers grew larger.
The largest shell company was called Aster Row Holdings.
Arthur owned forty-nine percent.
The remaining fifty-one percent belonged to Brooke.
Victoria turned the screen toward me.
“They created it three months after your father died.”
My stomach tightened.
My father had died four years earlier.
Arthur had helped me plan the funeral.
He had held my hand while the attorney read the will.
He had kissed my forehead and promised to protect me.
Then, three months later, he had created a company designed to steal from me.
“How much went through Aster Row?”
“Two point eight million dollars.”
I stared at the number.
“And the rest?”
Victoria clicked another file.
“Personal expenses. Vacations. Jewelry. Vehicles. Gambling debts.”
“Arthur doesn’t gamble.”
“Not under his own name.”
She showed me payments made to a private members-only club in Atlantic City.
The account belonged to a man named Marcus Hale.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“We’re still investigating.”
I looked through photographs attached to the report.
Arthur entering the club.
Arthur meeting a bank officer.
Arthur embracing a woman I had never seen before.
Then I noticed the date beneath one photograph.
It had been taken on our anniversary.
While I had waited at home with dinner growing cold, Arthur had been at a private casino with another woman.
Victoria closed the photograph.
“There’s something more serious.”
She placed a document in front of me.
It was an application for a six-million-dollar business loan.
The collateral listed was Bennett Ridge Capital stock.
My stock.
At the bottom of the application was my signature.
I had never seen the document before.
“That isn’t mine.”
“We know.”
“Who approved it?”
Victoria turned to the last page.
The loan officer’s name was printed beneath the authorization seal.
Marlene Voss.
I recognized it immediately.
Marlene wasn’t a stranger.
She had been sitting at my breakfast table three weeks earlier, smiling as Arthur introduced her as an old college friend.
And beside her signature was a notarized statement claiming I had personally appeared before a witness.
May you like
The witness was someone I trusted even more.
My father’s former attorney.
