Chapter 6 - MARCUS HAD BEEN INSIDE ELEANOR'S ACCOUNTS
For the first time, I became suspicious of Eleanor’s plan.
Not because I doubted her.
Because Marcus was everywhere.
Cayman Harbor.
Chloe.
DNA test.
Eleanor’s power of attorney.
Too much.
Patricia agreed.
“That is why I’m here.”
She had never liked Marcus’s appointment.
Eleanor insisted because Marcus knew Cayman Harbor’s structure.
But she required dual signatures.
Marcus could not move money alone.
Neither could I.
Good.
Then Patricia showed us the final-year transactions.
Most normal.
Home care.
Hospital bills.
Property taxes.
Then one irregular transfer.
$92,000.
From Eleanor’s investment account.
To:
Hale Advisory Services.
I stared.
“I never approved that.”
Patricia nodded.
“Neither did I.”
My signature appeared anyway.
Forged.
Again.
Julian actually looked at me.
Not with triumph.
Concern.
“You didn’t sign?”
“No.”
Marcus had forged me too.
Interesting.
The money then moved from Hale Advisory into Cayman Harbor.
Then into the Toronto townhouse account.
Julian looked stunned.
“I didn’t know that.”
Maybe.
Chloe whispered:
“Marcus told me Eleanor paid him for estate work.”
Partly true.
Not ninety-two thousand.
Then another payment.
$35,000.
Private laboratory.
The DNA test.
Marcus had used Eleanor’s money to investigate whether he fathered Chloe’s baby.
Without Eleanor’s knowledge.
The room changed.
This was no longer only family betrayal.
Possible elder financial exploitation.
Patricia had already reported the suspicious transactions to Eleanor’s bank before death.
The bank froze Marcus’s access.
Marcus responded by disappearing.
Not literally missing.
He moved to Vancouver.
Stopped answering.
Then Chloe said:
“He texted me last week.”
Julian looked at her.
“What?”
“He knew we were coming to New York.”
“How?”
“I told him.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted the test.”
There.
She had contacted Marcus.
Asked him to finish the DNA test.
He agreed.
Then stopped responding.
Chloe looked at the baby.
“I needed to know.”
Julian’s face became complicated.
Angry.
Terrified.
Humiliated.
Then he asked the question.
“Did you sleep with him while we were together?”
Chloe closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
The room went silent.
“When?”
“Twice.”
“Before the baby?”
“Yes.”
“While I was still married?”
She looked at him.
“So were you.”
Not wrong.
Julian flinched.
Then she added:
“I thought you were already separated from Elena.”
Also true from her perspective.
Messy.
No innocent adults except maybe Eleanor.
And me?
No.
I had made choices too.
I had stayed.
Believed.
Avoided asking harder questions because hope was easier.
Different wrongdoing.
Still agency.
Then Patricia’s phone rang.
She listened.
Her face changed.
“What?”
“The bank investigator found Marcus.”
“Where?”
“New York.”
He had entered the U.S. two days earlier.
Then:
“He tried to access a safe-deposit box this morning.”
Eleanor’s box.
At a Queens bank.
What was inside?
Patricia looked at me.
“I don’t know.”
But I did.
Eleanor had mentioned a box during one lucid afternoon.
She said:
“Julian will hate what’s inside.”
I thought she meant the will.
Apparently not.
The bank froze access because Marcus was no longer authorized.
But he had attempted anyway.
Why?
Then Chloe received a message.
Unknown number.
One sentence:
Do not let Julian open Eleanor’s blue ledger.
Marcus.
May you like
The ledger was in the safe-deposit box.
And whatever it contained frightened him more than the DNA test.
