Chapter 4 - THE SECOND FILE
The problem with accountants is that telling us not to find something practically guarantees we will.
Twenty-two minutes after Derek Shaw mentioned the second file, I was back outside Gertrude’s house.
This time, she wouldn’t open the door.
“Mom!” Brandon shouted.
No answer.
Noah stood beside me.
My father had gone home with my mother after I convinced him prison orange would not flatter him.
The remaining movers waited down the street.
I looked through the front window.
Gertrude moved past the hallway carrying a cardboard box.
“There.”
Brandon saw her.
“Mom!”
She ran.
Noah called the police.
Not because we had the right to force entry.
We didn’t.
But because the trust filing contained a forged signature and we now had recorded evidence suggesting destruction of records.
That was enough to make things official.
When officers arrived, Gertrude suddenly remembered how doors worked.
“This is harassment!”
One officer asked:
“Ma’am, do you have documents connected to Savannah Morgan?”
“No.”
From inside came the unmistakable sound of a paper shredder.
Everyone looked toward the hallway.
Gertrude’s face changed.
The officer sighed.
“Ma’am.”
Twenty minutes later, the cardboard box was on the dining-room floor.
I stood in the nearly empty room where my seventy-thousand-dollar dining set had been hours earlier.
Inside the box were property records.
Loan drafts.
Bank statements.
And invoices.
My invoices.
Roof.
Windows.
Kitchen.
Bathroom.
Every payment I had made.
But someone had duplicated them.
Then attached them to something else.
Grant applications.
I frowned.
“What is this?”
Noah read over my shoulder.
“Historic rehabilitation reimbursements.”
Brandon looked confused.
“The house isn’t historic.”
Exactly.
Gertrude had used my renovation invoices to claim reimbursements from a local improvement program.
More than forty thousand dollars.
My money had funded the work.
Then she had apparently claimed government money as though she paid for it herself.
I looked at her.
“You got reimbursed?”
Her face hardened.
“That money went into the house.”
“Show me.”
She said nothing.
Brandon stared at his mother.
“Mom.”
“Don’t.”
“Where did forty thousand dollars go?”
She turned on him.
“I kept this family alive!”
“With Savannah’s money?”
“She offered it.”
I held up the grant statement.
“Then you collected reimbursement on expenses you didn’t pay.”
Gertrude’s eyes flashed.
“I deserve something after everything I sacrificed.”
Noah quietly photographed every page.
Then I found an envelope.
My name was written across it.
Not Savannah.
Mrs. Brandon Pierce.
Inside was a draft postnuptial agreement.
I started reading.
Then stopped.
The document stated that after marriage, I would waive claims to reimbursement for all renovations.
It also gave Brandon management rights over certain marital investment accounts.
And contained language suggesting income earned during marriage could be pledged for “family development obligations.”
I looked at him.
“Did you know about this?”
“No.”
For once, I believed him.
Gertrude stepped forward.
“You would have signed.”
I laughed.
“No.”
“Brandon would have explained.”
“I manage financial contracts for a living.”
Her confidence wavered.
Then Noah pulled out the final page.
A signature appeared.
Mine.
Again.
Forged.
But this time, the witness line was signed too.
By Councilman Derek Shaw.
Brandon whispered:
“Oh my God.”
I stared at Gertrude.
“How long were you planning this?”
She lifted her chin.
“Long enough to know my son deserved a wife who understood family responsibility.”
“No.”
I folded the document.
“You wanted an ATM with a veil.”
Then I saw one final item inside the box.
A photograph.
Gertrude and Derek Shaw standing together outside a courthouse.
Twenty-nine years earlier.
On the back someone had written:
Brandon’s first birthday.
I looked at Brandon.
Then at Gertrude.
Then at the man standing beside her in the photograph.
Derek Shaw.
Brandon’s face turned pale.
“My father died before I was born.”
Gertrude sat down.
Noah looked at her.
“Did he?”
She said nothing.
Brandon stared at the photograph.
And suddenly the corrupt councilman who had tried to use my marriage made sense in a much uglier way.
May you like
Derek Shaw wasn’t just Brandon’s boss.
He might be Brandon’s father.
