PART 2
The following Monday I got to the office early. Joni, my assistant and friend since the company’s first years, was waiting with several folders.
“Harper, there’s something you need to review yourself.”
She showed me receipts Trent had used for months to justify family payments. Among them were invoices for supposed treatments for his parents, but the reference numbers and descriptions didn’t match. One address kept repeating: a luxury condo in Scottsdale Quarter.
“Who lives there?”
Joni looked down. “A woman named Brooke.”
My breath caught. Gloria had claimed she needed money for medication. But a large portion of the thirty-five hundred dollars I deposited each month had gone to the rent and expenses of her son’s mistress.
My attorney, Gavin Pruitt, advised me to preserve every document and formally request the missing information. We couldn’t accuse anyone without sufficient proof. Then we found something worse. Brooke’s lease included a guaranty supposedly issued by my company. When I requested a copy as the company’s legal representative, I found a signature imitating mine. I had never authorized any such commitment.
“This changes things, Harper,” Gavin warned. “We’re no longer talking about just a divorce. There could be forgery and misuse of company funds.”
That afternoon I canceled the additional cards Trent was authorized to use and ordered a review of his access to corporate accounts. I also suspended the voluntary support to his parents.
Not twenty minutes later, Gloria called. “Harper! My card didn’t get the deposit! What kind of daughter-in-law abandons two old people?”
“The kind who just found out who’s paying for Brooke’s condo.”
Silence. Then I heard Walt mutter, “I told you to hold on to those receipts.”
Gloria hung up.
Two days later the bank notified me that someone had tried to use an old card linked to my personal savings. I remembered then that years ago I’d left a backup card with my in-laws in case of emergency. I had it blocked and filed a dispute.
The next day Trent showed up at my company’s offices demanding a corporate card to buy baby furniture. When security denied him entry, he shouted in front of the employees, “I’m the owner’s husband! All of this is mine too!”
Joni sent me the incident report. I replied only: Save the footage, and don’t let him intimidate anyone.
Meanwhile, Gavin formally notified Trent that the house belonged to the company and that his permission to use it would be revoked, offering to coordinate the return of his belongings. Trent answered with a mocking text:
Friday I’m coming with Brooke. By then you’ll understand that house is mine.
That night I received the first report from a private investigator I’d hired to look into public and commercial activity connected to the possible fraud. Gloria had been introducing Brooke to her friends as her son’s future wife, and him as a supposed multimillionaire. Trent had spent months pretending to be the founder of my company. They had even booked a venue in Sedona for a wedding with a hundred and twenty guests, and hired a lavish caterer, counting on me to keep paying.
But the investigator had found another lie. Brooke was in frequent contact with a man named Kyle, with whom she’d had a relationship for years. In several recent photos they were embracing, even after she had begun publicly flaunting her romance with Trent.
“There’s more,” she told me. “Kyle says Brooke was still his girlfriend when she got pregnant.”
A chill ran through me. “You’re saying the baby might not be Trent’s?”
“It’s possible, but we don’t have a paternity test. What matters is that Brooke hid a relationship that continues to this day.”
At that moment another message came in from my husband.
Tomorrow at eleven we’ll be in front of OUR house. You’d better have the keys ready.
I looked at the documents on my desk. Trent believed he had tricked his wife out of her fortune. His parents believed they’d gotten a more obedient daughter-in-law. And Brooke believed she was about to marry the owner of a multimillion-dollar company.
None of them imagined that the next day, the lies they had built together would begin to destroy each other.
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