Chapter 9 - SOMEONE INSIDE HIS OFFICE
By the time Mia was cleared to go home the next morning, Ethan had stopped defending his mother.
Now he was afraid of her.
But the office connection changed the mystery again.
Sylvia had never worked at Ethan’s company.
She had visited only twice.
So how had a forged document been uploaded from there?
Ethan called his company’s IT director from the hospital parking garage.
He didn’t explain everything.
He simply asked whether old network login records could identify the computer used on a certain date.
The answer was yes.
Two hours later, his boss called.
I could hear the tension through Ethan’s speakerphone.
“The upload came from conference room three,” his boss said. “That room doesn’t require individual login credentials.”
Ethan cursed under his breath.
“Do you have camera footage?”
“Not from nine months ago.”
“So anybody could have done it.”
“Anybody inside the building.”
Then his boss added something that made Ethan stop pacing.
“You may want to know your mother attended the company charity breakfast that morning.”
Ethan stared at me.
I remembered that event.
Sylvia had been invited because Ethan had bought a sponsor table.
“She was inside the building,” I said.
His boss continued.
“She wasn’t alone.”
Ethan frowned.
“Who was with her?”
“Your financial adviser. Grant Keller.”
I knew the name.
Grant had managed several of Ethan’s investment accounts before we married.
I had met him once.
He had talked to me for almost an hour without asking a single question about my work.
Ethan called Grant.
No answer.
He called again.
Voicemail.
Then Lena, our attorney, called.
She had reviewed the financial records we sent her.
Her conclusion was simple.
“We need an independent forensic accountant.”
Ethan looked wounded by the idea.
“These are family accounts.”
“Exactly,” Lena replied. “And right now you don’t know who has been moving money through them.”
That evening, back home with Mia sleeping beside us, Ethan and I sat at the dining table surrounded by printouts.
The house felt different.
Every framed family photograph now looked like evidence.
At midnight, Ethan found an old email from Grant.
Subject line:
REVISED BENEFICIARY STRUCTURE.
The email contained an attachment.
Ethan opened it.
His life-insurance policy had been changed shortly before Mia was born.
The primary beneficiary was still me.
But if I died before Ethan, the contingent beneficiary for a substantial portion of the policy was not Mia.
It was Sylvia.
Ethan whispered, “I never approved this.”
Then I noticed a second attachment.
A handwritten note scanned into the file.
Grant—
Make sure Rachel never sees version A.
—S.
I looked at Ethan.
“Version A of what?”
He searched the folder.
And found it.
It was a draft financial plan.
May you like
On page six was a sentence that made my blood run cold.
In the event of marital separation, Sylvia recommended that Ethan establish residency with Mia before Rachel could file.
