Chapter 5
By nine thirty, I had an attorney.
Rebecca Chen came recommended by one of our longtime commercial clients.
She specialized in corporate fraud and complex divorce cases, and when I finished explaining everything, she didn’t waste time comforting me.
She started making calls.
I needed that.
“First,” she said, “you stop treating this like a marriage problem.”
I sat across from her desk.
Megan sat beside me.
Rebecca tapped the forged corporate resolution.
“This is potentially fraud, forgery, conspiracy, computer intrusion, theft, and professional misconduct.”
“And adultery.”
Rebecca gave me a look.
“That may hurt emotionally. The other things can put people in prison.”
I nodded.
“What about the house?”
“We’ll pull the deed record immediately.”
“And my company?”
“We seek emergency relief today.”
She looked at me carefully.
“Who owns Hartwell Interiors?”
“I founded it three years before Daniel and I married.”
“Did you ever transfer shares to him?”
“No.”
“Put his name on ownership documents?”
“No.”
“Take investment money from him?”
“No.”
“Then his ability to claim ownership is limited. His ability to run it using a forged authorization is nonexistent.”
For the first time since I got home, I felt something close to hope.
Rebecca continued.
“Now tell me about your finances.”
That part was uglier.
Daniel and I had joint personal accounts.
He knew my passwords.
Diane had prepared our taxes for years.
Lauren had handled a refinance consultation three months earlier.
Between the three of them, they had access to almost everything.
Rebecca’s expression became more serious with each answer.
“You trusted your family.”
“Yes.”
“That isn’t negligence.”
“It feels like it.”
“It was trust. They exploited it.”
I looked down.
Rebecca slid a legal pad toward me.
“Write every account you can remember. Banks, investments, retirement, company accounts, credit cards, insurance.”
“Insurance?”
“Everything.”
The word bothered me.
I wrote anyway.
An hour later, Rebecca’s paralegal entered carrying property records.
“We found the deed.”
Rebecca read it.
Her face tightened.
“What?”
She turned it toward me.
The transfer had been recorded two days earlier.
My interest in the house had supposedly been conveyed to Mercer Residential Holdings LLC.
I stared at the company name.
“MRL Holdings.”
Marcus had said the wire transfer was going there.
Rebecca nodded.
“Same entity, most likely.”
“Who owns it?”
“We’re checking.”
The deed was notarized.
My signature appeared perfectly at the bottom.
It looked so much like mine that for half a second I doubted myself.
Then I remembered where I had actually been on the date listed.
“Wait.”
I pointed.
“This says I signed it last Thursday in Atlanta.”
“Yes.”
“I was in Chicago.”
Rebecca looked up.
“Can you prove it?”
I almost laughed.
“Hotel records. Flight records. Conference registration. I gave a presentation that afternoon in front of four hundred people.”
Rebecca smiled for the first time.
“That helps.”
Her paralegal’s phone buzzed.
She checked it.
Then looked at us.
“MRL Holdings was created four months ago.”
“Owner?”
“Diane Mercer.”
Megan slammed her hand on the chair.
“That woman.”
I stared at the document.
Daniel’s mother owned the company that had supposedly received my house.
And my corporate money was being wired into the same entity.
Rebecca leaned back.
“That makes the pattern easier to demonstrate.”
My phone rang.
My mother.
I stared at the screen.
Megan touched my arm.
“Answer.”
I did.
“Mom.”
Carol Hartwell sounded like she had been crying.
“Sarah, where are you?”
“With an attorney.”
She went silent.
“Why?”
“Because my husband forged my signature and tried to transfer my house.”
“Daniel said you agreed to sell.”
“I didn’t.”
“He said you forgot.”
I closed my eyes.
“Mom.”
“I’m just telling you what he said.”
“Do you believe him?”
Her silence hurt.
Then she whispered, “He showed me messages.”
“What messages?”
“Messages you sent him. You said you were exhausted. That you couldn’t keep doing this. That sometimes you wished you could disappear.”
I stared at Megan.
“I never sent those.”
“He showed me.”
“They’re fake.”
“Sarah, please.”
My mother’s voice trembled.
“Daniel says you haven’t been sleeping.”
“How would he know? He’s been sleeping with Lauren Price.”
Silence.
“What?”
“Lauren. The attorney you met at your birthday dinner. She was in my house last night wearing my robe.”
My mother gasped.
I continued before she could interrupt.
“Diane was there too.”
“Diane?”
“She has a company called Mercer Residential Holdings.”
Another silence.
Then my mother said something that made Rebecca immediately look at me.
“I know.”
“What?”
“Daniel brought me papers from that company last week.”
My body went cold.
“What papers?”
“He asked me to sign as a witness.”
Megan stood.
“You signed something?”
Carol started crying.
“He said it was part of your estate planning.”
“Mom, what did you sign?”
“I don’t know.”
Rebecca held out her hand for the phone.
I switched to speaker.
“Mrs. Hartwell, my name is Rebecca Chen. I represent Sarah. I need you to remember exactly what Daniel asked you to sign.”
My mother’s breathing became shaky.
“There were several pages.”
“Were they completed?”
“Some were.”
“Did any have Sarah’s signature?”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
“Did you see Sarah sign them?”
“No.”
Rebecca’s voice remained calm.
“Did Daniel tell you she already had?”
“Yes.”
“And did anyone else sign?”
“Diane was there.”
“Lauren?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
The room went still.
Rebecca leaned forward.
“Mrs. Hartwell, do not speak to any of them again without contacting us. Do not destroy messages. Do not delete emails.”
Carol began crying harder.
“Oh God. What did I do?”
I wanted to be angry.
Part of me was.
But another part heard my mother realizing she had been used.
“We’ll figure it out.”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
Before I could answer, Rebecca’s paralegal rushed back inside.
“The bank called.”
I looked up.
“The wire?”
“Frozen.”
I exhaled.
Then she continued.
“But there’s another problem.”
She placed a document on Rebecca’s desk.
A home-equity credit line.
Four hundred thousand dollars.
Opened against my house six weeks earlier.
Current balance?
Three hundred eighty-seven thousand.
My forged signature appeared on every page.
I stared at the number.
“Where did the money go?”
The paralegal swallowed.
“Most of it went to Lauren Price’s law firm trust account.”
The affair suddenly looked smaller.
May you like
Daniel and Lauren hadn’t just been sleeping together.
They were financing their future with everything I owned.
