PART4

She looked at the judgment again.

“Sometimes a divorce is used to separate assets. Sometimes it is used to conceal assets. And sometimes it is used to create the appearance that someone has no claim to property they might otherwise be entitled to.”

I thought of our house.

The mortgage I had been paying.

The Porsche.

Nate’s mysterious commissions.

The money he said was building our future.

“Can you find out?”

“Yes. But I need you to promise me something.”

“What?”

“Do not confront him again until we know what we’re dealing with. If he believes you have discovered only the divorce, he may not realize how much evidence we can still obtain.”

I nodded.

Margaret picked up the phone and called her office.

By noon, she had submitted requests for certified court records and begun arranging a review of the filing history.

She also recommended that I contact the notary listed on the acknowledgment.

I wrote down the name.

Patricia Ellis.

Then I checked the date.

June 14.

The day I had been hospitalized.

Margaret looked at the hospital discharge paperwork I had brought.

“Do you have proof you were admitted that day?”

“I can get it.”

“Get everything. Admission records, medication records, visitor logs if available. Anything that establishes where you were.”

I nodded.

Then my phone buzzed.

It was Nate.

NATE: We need to talk. Your behavior last night was embarrassing.

A second message arrived.

NATE: Mom is very upset. You owe her an apology.

Then a third.

NATE: Also, don’t make any decisions about the house until we talk.

I showed Margaret.

She read the messages without changing her expression.

“Interesting.”

“What?”

“He’s more concerned about the house than your marriage.”

I looked down at the phone.

Another message appeared.

NATE: I know about the inheritance. We need to discuss how we’re going to handle it.

I didn’t respond.

Instead, I placed the phone on the table.

For the first time in five years, I wasn’t going to explain myself to Nate.

I was going to find out what he had done.

Three days later, Margaret called me at work.

Her voice was unusually serious.

“Hannah, I need you to come to my office.”

“What happened?”

“We found something.”

I arrived forty minutes later.

Margaret had a thick folder on her desk.

She opened it and slid three documents toward me.

The first was a copy of the divorce petition.

The second was a financial disclosure statement.

The third was a property transfer record.

I read the first page.

Then the second.

Then I reached the third.

My hands went cold.

The property transfer was dated six months before the divorce was finalized.

It involved our house.

My house.

The house I had spent five years paying for.

According to the document, Nate had transferred his interest in the property to a company called Northbridge Residential Holdings.

I looked at Margaret.

“What is this company?”

She turned her computer toward me.

“It’s a privately registered property holding company. We’re still investigating its ownership.”

I looked back at the document.

There was a signature beneath the transfer authorization.

Nate’s.

And beside it was a second signature.

Mine.

Except I had never signed it.

I leaned back.

“Someone forged my signature again.”

“That’s what it appears to be.”

I swallowed.

“Why would he transfer the house?”

Margaret opened another folder.

“Because there’s more.”

She placed a bank statement in front of me.

It showed a loan secured against the property.

The amount was $1.2 million.

I stared at the number.

“Nate borrowed against our house?”

“According to these records, yes.”

“But I never agreed to that.”

Margaret nodded.

“And there’s something else. The loan proceeds were transferred through several accounts. One of the receiving accounts appears to be connected to Northbridge.”

I looked at the company name.

Then something occurred to me.

“Could Northbridge be connected to his mother?”

Margaret didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, she opened a document showing the company’s registered officers.

I leaned forward.

And there it was.

Barbara Whitmore — Managing Member.

I felt the room become strangely quiet.

His mother hadn’t simply been enjoying the house.

She had been connected to the company that now held an interest in it.

I looked at Margaret.

“Did Nate know about my inheritance when he filed the divorce?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“But the divorce was finalized nine months ago. My uncle died only recently.”

“Correct.”

“So this wasn’t about the inheritance.”

Margaret folded her hands.

“Not necessarily. But it may have been about something else.”

“What?”

She slid one final page across the desk.

It was a list of assets and liabilities submitted with the divorce agreement.

At the bottom, beneath the section labeled Marital Property Settlement, was a statement claiming that I had received $850,000 in exchange for surrendering all claims to the house and other marital assets.

I stared at it.

“I never received this money.”

Margaret nodded.

“That’s one of the things we’re going to investigate.”

I looked at the date.

The settlement was supposedly signed the same week I had been hospitalized.

Then I noticed a handwritten note in the margin.

It contained a reference to an account number.

I recognized the last four digits.

It was an account I had opened years earlier for our household emergency fund.

An account I hadn’t checked in months because Nate had told me he was consolidating our finances.

I looked up slowly.

“Margaret, I think I know where that money went.”

She leaned forward.

“Where?”

I took out my phone and opened my banking app.

The account was still there.

But the balance was almost zero.

I scrolled through the transaction history.

There were withdrawals I didn’t recognize.

Transfers.

Wire payments.

And one transaction dated nine months earlier.

The amount was $850,000.

I stared at the screen.

The money had been deposited into an account belonging to Northbridge Residential Holdings.

I couldn’t speak.

Margaret took a screenshot of the transaction details for the file.

Then she said something that made my blood run cold.

“Hannah, I think we need to find out whether this was the only account involved.”

My phone began ringing.

Nate.

I let it ring.

He called again.

Then a message appeared.

NATE: I know you’ve been talking to a lawyer. We need to settle this before things get out of control.

CONTINUE FOR NEXT PART5…