Chapter 4 - The Paper Trail
The weekend was a blur of fluorescent lights, cold coffee, and the endless clacking of keyboards.
Elena and I had set up a war room in the guest house of the estate. The main house was too large, too full of ghosts, so we stayed in the small, stone cottage where my father used to keep his drafting tables.
The floor was covered in neat stacks of bank statements, tax returns, and corporate ledgers going back five years.
“Here,” I said, pointing to a line item on a 2024 tax return for Vance Holdings LLC. “This is where the diversion began. Derek created this entity three months after our wedding. He used my father’s forged signature to list Carter Construction as a guarantor for a six-million-dollar line of credit.”
Elena leaned over my shoulder, her glasses slipping down her nose. “What did he use the credit line for?”
“He bought a strip mall in New Jersey,” I said, showing her the property deed. “But look at the management company. M.V. Properties. Registered to Marlene Vance. She’s been collecting the rent payments from the tenants directly, while Carter Construction has been paying the interest on the loan.”
“It’s classic asset stripping,” Elena muttered, taking a sip of her energy drink. “He was setting up a safety net. If Carter Construction went under due to the harbor project delays, they would still have the New Jersey properties and the offshore accounts to live on.”
“But they don't have them anymore,” I said, a cold sense of satisfaction washing over me. “Because the New Jersey bank that holds the rental accounts is a subsidiary of the main bank we froze this morning. They can't touch the rent, and they can't pay the mortgage on the strip mall.”
“They’re going to default,” Elena said.
“Yes. Within thirty days, the bank will foreclose. Marlene’s little real-estate empire is going to vanish before her eyes.”
The door to the cottage opened, and Deputy Miller stepped inside, his face grave. He was holding a small, yellow slip of paper.
“Miss Carter,” Miller said, looking at me. “We’ve got a situation. Derek Vance just tried to access the corporate warehouse on Route 9. He had a moving truck with him and was trying to load up some of the heavy machinery—the excavators and the generators.”
I stood up, my heart quickening. “Those machines are the primary assets of the company. If he sells them on the black market, we won't have enough collateral to keep the remaining contracts alive.”
“We stopped him,” Miller said. “But he’s got a lawyer with him now. A guy named Richard Vance. His uncle.”
Elena let out a sharp, dry laugh. “Richard Vance? The ambulance chaser from Queens? He hasn't seen the inside of a corporate courtroom in twenty years. They really are running out of options if they’re calling him.”
“What did Richard say?” I asked.
“He’s claiming the machinery is personal property registered under Derek’s name,” Miller said. “He produced a bill of sale showing that Carter Construction sold the equipment to Derek for one dollar last year.”
I walked over to the filing cabinet, my fingers flying through the folders until I found the original inventory logs.
“The bill of sale is a forgery,” I said, pulling out a white document with my father’s signature. “This is the original purchase order from the manufacturer. The equipment was bought with a state development grant that specifically prohibits transfer of ownership for ten years. If Derek signed a bill of sale, he violated federal grant laws.”
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I handed the paper to Elena.
“Call the district attorney, Elena,” I said, my voice cold and steady. “Tell them we don't just have a domestic assault case anymore. We have federal grant fraud. Let’s see how much his uncle can do when the FBI gets involved.”
