Chapter 5 - The Shell Games
By midnight, the mansion was dead quiet.
Daniel and Lorraine had been escorted to a nearby budget hotel by one of Frank’s junior officers, carrying nothing more than two nylon duffel bags filled with emergency clothes. Daniel had tried to drive his sports car out of the garage, only to find an orange wheel lock installed on the driver's side tire—courtesy of Inspector Miller.
I sat at Arthur’s heavy mahogany desk in the library, a cup of hot chamomile tea resting on a leather coaster beside me.
Evelyn Price was seated across from me, her laptop plugged into the wall, reviewing the digitized ledgers we had pulled from Daniel’s personal computer before he was escorted off the premises.
"It’s worse than Arthur thought," Evelyn said, adjusting her glasses as her eyes scanned lines of financial data. "Daniel wasn't just stealing to fund his mother's lifestyle. He was gambling on high-risk offshore crypto derivatives using the company’s escrow reserves."
I leaned forward. "How much did he lose?"
"Over three point two million dollars in six months," Evelyn revealed, turning the screen toward me. "He was three weeks away from total insolvency. If you hadn't brought me Arthur’s key tonight, Daniel would have filed for corporate bankruptcy by the end of the month, cleared the debt through Arthur’s estate, and left you personally liable for the outstanding tax guarantees you signed as company secretary two years ago."
Cold fury washed through me. Two years ago, when Daniel had begged me to sign those administrative tax forms, he had kissed my forehead, calling me his "brilliant partner." He hadn't been making me a partner; he had been building a human shield to absorb his criminal liability when his illegal house of cards finally collapsed.
"Can we link Lorraine directly to the crypto accounts?" I asked, my voice steady and sharp.
"We don't even have to," Evelyn smirked. "Lorraine opened three secondary credit lines in your name using your forged social security number. We found the application forms saved in her personal cloud drive. She bought seventy thousand dollars worth of designer jewelry from a boutique in Manhattan last month, thinking you would be forced to settle the debt in the divorce."
I looked out the high library window at the rain falling softly on the manicured lawn.
May you like
They had viewed me as an empty, disposable entity. A quiet girl from a modest family who ought to feel grateful to breathe the same air as the grand Vance family. They had thought my patience was weakness, my silence was ignorance, and my obedience was permanent.
"Call the district attorney, Evelyn," I said softly, taking a sip of my tea. "Don't offer them a settlement. I want every single charge pursued to the maximum extent of the law."
