Chapter 4 - THE MAN WHO ARRANGED OUR LAST NIGHT TOGETHER
Grant read the warehouse documents three times.
Then a fourth.
His face darkened with each page.
“Victor told me the warehouse title had a defect.”
Rachel asked:
“Did you verify that?”
“No.”
Grant said it without excuse.
Good.
“He told me Emily needed to sign in person.”
I looked at Grant.
“Victor told me the same thing.”
So we both came.
Two ex-spouses.
One snowstorm.
One manipulated meeting.
But Victor could not control everything.
He did not make us talk.
He did not make us sleep together.
That choice remained ours.
Important.
Then why forge the letter afterward?
Rachel answered.
“Because reconciliation would have been dangerous to him.”
Grant frowned.
“How?”
“If you and Emily started comparing divorce records, you might notice discrepancies.”
Exactly.
Victor needed us apart.
Emotionally.
Legally.
Financially.
Then another question:
Why keep the warehouse unresolved after the signature attempt failed?
Because it gave him a reason to bring us together again if needed.
A hook.
Then Rachel traced the missing divorce money.
The Nevada company belonged to:
VDC Holdings.
Victor Dane Consulting.
Not subtle once revealed.
The money was mostly gone.
Investments.
Properties.
Debt repayment.
But several million remained frozen after Rachel filed an emergency civil claim.
Then Grant’s independent auditor entered with another finding.
Victor had been stealing from more than me.
Hale Security.
Hale Hotels.
Shipping contracts.
Small percentages.
Years.
Estimated total:
More than sixty million dollars.
Grant looked physically sick.
“He was with me twenty-three years.”
I said nothing.
Then:
“He helped build everything.”
I thought of our marriage.
How many times had I told Grant that Victor seemed too involved?
How many times had Grant replied:
“He’s family.”
Trust again.
Then the auditor said:
“There’s one transaction we don’t understand.”
Payment:
$250,000.
From Victor’s shell company to a fertility clinic.
My hand went automatically to my stomach.
“What clinic?”
Westbridge Reproductive Medicine.
Grant and I had gone there four years earlier.
When we were still married.
After two years of trying unsuccessfully to have a child.
My throat closed.
We had undergone testing.
The doctor told us my ovarian reserve was poor.
Pregnancy unlikely.
I remembered crying in Grant’s arms.
I remembered him saying:
“We’re enough.”
Then one year later, Vanessa entered his life.
I had always believed infertility helped break us.
Not entirely.
But enough.
Rachel asked:
“What did Victor pay them for?”
The auditor looked uncomfortable.
“We don’t know.”
Grant stared at me.
My baby moved.
Suddenly I felt cold.
We subpoenaed records.
The clinic resisted.
Then produced them under court order.
My original test results.
Normal ovarian reserve.
Normal fertility markers.
I stared.
“That’s impossible.”
The report I received years earlier said the opposite.
Rachel placed both side by side.
Different numbers.
Different conclusions.
My medical record had been altered.
Then the clinic disclosed the employee who changed it.
A billing administrator named:
May you like
Melissa Dane.
Victor’s daughter.
