Chapter 8 - THE LOAN IN MY NAME
The loan application failed.
That was the good news.
The bad news was that whoever submitted it had enough information to pass three identity checks.
Social Security number.
Prior address.
Mother’s maiden name.
An old car loan amount.
I froze my credit within minutes.
Noah contacted the lender.
Corporate counsel contacted federal investigators.
My mother made coffee strong enough to dissolve metal.
Then we waited.
At 7:40 P.M., a fraud investigator called.
The application had originated from a municipal office network in Grand Rapids.
Brandon went pale.
“My building.”
“Could someone use your computer?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
He looked miserable.
“Half the department.”
Noah asked:
“Who has administrator access?”
Brandon named four people.
One was Derek.
Another was Brandon’s direct supervisor.
The third was IT.
The fourth was Gertrude’s younger brother.
Uncle Paul.
I laughed.
“Of course.”
Family business.
Literally.
Federal investigators moved faster after that.
By morning, Derek’s office computers were preserved.
Martin Keane was suspended from Arden.
Claire was terminated.
Marianne Holt’s document company was subpoenaed.
Gertrude stopped answering calls.
And Brandon was placed on administrative leave.
He came to Detroit again.
This time alone.
“I’m going to cooperate.”
“With investigators?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He looked at me.
“Because yesterday I kept thinking about what you said.”
“What?”
“That I was willing to spend you.”
I said nothing.
He continued.
“I loved you. But every time loving you cost me something with my mother or Derek, I chose them.”
“That isn’t love I can use.”
“I know.”
For the first time, he did not ask for another chance.
That mattered.
Not enough.
But it mattered.
Then he gave me a key.
“What is this?”
“Safe-deposit box.”
“Whose?”
“My mother’s.”
I stared.
“How did you get it?”
“She kept it in Dad’s old tackle box.”
“Which dad?”
He flinched.
Fair.
“Ray Pierce. The man who raised me.”
I took the key.
“What’s inside?”
“I don’t know.”
Noah arranged lawful access through investigators rather than letting us play amateur criminals.
Inside Gertrude’s box were jewelry, cash, old property deeds, and a sealed envelope labeled:
FOR BRANDON IF DEREK TURNS ON US.
Brandon opened it.
Inside were copies of payments.
Derek to Gertrude.
Gertrude to Marianne.
Marianne to Claire.
And Martin.
A complete money trail.
Noah exhaled.
“This is very good.”
Then I noticed another file.
Not financial.
Medical.
Brandon’s birth certificate.
Original version.
Father:
Derek Shaw.
Brandon stared.
There it was.
Proof.
Not just rumor.
Then he found a letter.
From Gertrude.
Written twenty-nine years earlier.
Derek,
You promised me we would eventually become a real family. I’m tired of hiding your son while you build a public life with Patricia.
Brandon read silently.
His face changed.
“What?”
He handed me the page.
The final paragraph said:
If Patricia ever discovers Brandon exists, I’ll tell her what you did to Rebecca Morgan at the bank.
I stopped breathing.
Morgan.
My surname.
My father looked over my shoulder.
“Rebecca was my sister.”
My aunt.
The woman who died when I was two.
Officially, she died in a car crash.
My father’s face turned white.
He looked at the letter.
Then at me.
“Savannah.”
“What?”
His voice shook.
“Rebecca was the first person who investigated Marianne Holt.”
The room went silent.
My canceled wedding was no longer connected only to money.
May you like
It was connected to a woman in my family who had died twenty-seven years earlier.
And suddenly I wondered whether her car crash had been an accident at all.
