Chapter 3 - Skeletons in the Spreadsheet
By midnight,
The house was finally quiet.
David and Jessica were in the guest wing,
Probably toast-ing their victory with my expensive scotch.
I sat in my office again,
The door locked and barricaded with a heavy chair.
I didn't have much time.
I opened my laptop and began the deep dive.
I started with "Dr. Sterling."
His real name was Marcus Thorne.
A disbarred attorney from Connecticut,
Who had a history of "consulting" for wealthy families in transition.
In every case he touched,
The elderly parent died within six months,
And the estate was liquidated.
I felt a chill.
They weren't just going to put me in a home.
They were going to make sure I didn't last long.
Then I turned my attention to "S. Miller," the notary.
Sarah Miller.
She was Jessica’s sister.
The fraud was a family affair.
I moved on to David.
I felt a pang of grief as I looked at his bank statements.
He owed over four hundred thousand dollars,
To various offshore gambling sites.
He was desperate.
Desperation makes people do terrible things,
But it also makes them sloppy.
He had been using my credit cards to fund his addiction,
Disguising the transactions as "medical supplies" and "home maintenance."
But he didn't know how to scrub a digital trail.
I followed the money,
Routing it back through his IP address.
I had enough to put him away for a decade.
But Jessica was the real prize.
I searched for her maiden name.
Jessica Vance.
No, that was a fake.
I used her social security number,
Which I found in the loan documents.
Her real name was Monica Graves.
She had three prior marriages.
In two of them,
The husbands were much older.
Both had died of "natural causes."
Both had left her everything.
She was a professional.
A black widow with a briefcase.
I looked at the "Project Sunset" blueprints again.
The contractor listed was "Vance Construction."
Owned by her brother.
They were a syndicate.
A small,
Vicious,
Efficient team of scavengers.
I spent the next four hours,
Compiling a master file.
I labeled it "The Pendelton Audit."
I included the forged loan documents.
The photos of the guardianship petition.
The gambling debts.
The real identities of the conspirators.
And the proof of the shell company in the Caymans.
Then,
I made three phone calls.
The first was to an old friend from the IRS.
The second was to a former colleague at the FBI’s white-collar crime division.
The third was to a man named Miller—
Not the notary,
But a private security expert I had helped during a corporate embezzlement case.
"Arthur?" Miller’s voice was raspy.
"It’s 3:00 AM.
Is everything okay?"
"I’m being audited, Miller," I said,
Using our old code for a life-or-death situation.
"And I need a clean-up crew at 9:00 AM Monday."
"I'll be there," he said.
"Who are we taking down?"
"My family," I whispered.
I hung up the phone.
I looked at the picture of Eleanor on my desk.
"I’m sorry, Ellie," I said to the empty room.
"I tried to save him.
May you like
But he’s not our son anymore.
He’s just another liability."
