Chapter 2
Martin Hale had been my attorney for eighteen years.
He had handled the trust after my father's death.
He had negotiated the Bayfront Pavilion purchase.
He had also warned me twice not to keep so much money in a joint account.
I wished I had listened.
When I walked into his office shortly before eleven, he was waiting in jeans and a wrinkled dress shirt.
His eyes dropped to the shredded suit under my arm.
“What happened?”
“My wife.”
He looked at me carefully.
“Sit down.”
I didn't sit.
Instead, I placed the banking records on his desk.
Then the deeds.
Then the receipt for Raymond's watch.
Martin read quietly.
The longer he read, the tighter his jaw became.
“Did you authorize any of these transfers?”
“No.”
“Did Victoria have permission to move household money?”
“Normal expenses. Not this.”
He pointed to several payments.
“These aren't household expenses.”
“I know.”
He turned his computer toward himself.
“Raymond Ellis. That's Sabrina's biological father?”
“Yes.”
“The man who suddenly came back?”
“Yes.”
Martin leaned back.
“And tomorrow he's walking your daughter down the aisle at a venue you own.”
“Apparently.”
For the first time that night, he almost smiled.
Then his face became serious again.
“Glenn, forget the wedding for a minute.”
“I'd like to.”
“This could be financial fraud.”
He tapped the pending forty-two-thousand-dollar transaction.
“We need to stop this first.”
He called the bank's emergency fraud line.
Because the transfer was still pending, the bank temporarily froze it.
Then we froze outbound transfers from every account connected to my business income.
Martin instructed me to change passwords immediately.
I did.
Banking.
Email.
Cloud storage.
Business accounts.
Everything.
Then he pulled up California property records.
“Your house is protected by the trust.”
“Yes.”
“Workshop too.”
“Yes.”
“And Victoria never became a trustee?”
“No.”
Martin nodded.
“Then she cannot mortgage either property without your authorization.”
Relief hit me so hard I had to finally sit down.
For hours, I had imagined them somehow taking everything.
My home.
My workshop.
My father's legacy.
“They couldn't do it?”
“Not legally.”
“Could they forge my signature?”
His expression changed.
“They could try.”
That answer stayed with me.
Martin opened another folder.
“I want copies of every signature page related to your property. Tomorrow morning, I'll notify the title company and lender you normally use. No transaction involving your trust proceeds without direct verification from me.”
I nodded.
Then he asked the question I had been avoiding.
“What do you want to do about Victoria?”
I stared at my hands.
Twenty-seven years of marriage.
That was not something a person ended with one sentence.
But maybe she had already ended it.
Maybe I was simply late to noticing.
“I heard her planning to take the money and leave with Raymond.”
Martin said nothing.
“She laughed about me.”
Still nothing.
“My daughter laughed too.”
His eyes softened.
“Glenn.”
“I don't know which part hurts worse.”
He slid a legal pad toward me.
“You don't have to decide everything tonight.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“You need to protect yourself tonight. Decisions about forgiveness can wait.”
That distinction helped.
Protection first.
Feelings later.
“Then protect me.”
“We start with a separation of finances.”
He prepared documents.
He also advised me not to return home alone if I believed they might destroy records or property.
Then he asked about Bayfront Pavilion.
“What exactly did you pay for tomorrow?”
“Food deposit. Flowers. Decoration package. Security. Music. Almost everything.”
“And the hall itself?”
“My trust owns it.”
“Can the event be canceled?”
“Yes.”
He studied me.
“Are you going to?”
I thought about the suit.
Sabrina's face.
You're going to embarrass us.
Then something unexpected happened.
I shook my head.
“No.”
Martin looked surprised.
“Why not?”
“Because I want the wedding to happen.”
His eyebrows rose.
“I don't want revenge against Logan or his family. They didn't do this.”
“Reasonable.”
“I don't even want to destroy Sabrina's ceremony.”
“That surprises me.”
“It surprises me too.”
I leaned forward.
“But I will not pay for people to humiliate me.”
Martin waited.
“I want every remaining vendor payment from my personal funds stopped.”
“We can do that.”
“Anything already paid stays.”
“Okay.”
“The venue can remain available.”
He narrowed his eyes.
“Under what conditions?”
“That depends on what else we find.”
Martin nodded slowly.
“We should inspect Raymond Ellis Holdings.”
I had expected that.
What I had not expected was how quickly his investigator found problems.
By 1:30 a.m., we learned Raymond's company had been formed only nine months earlier.
Its registered address was a mailbox store.
No employees.
No active business license for investment services.
Three lawsuits had been filed against companies previously associated with him.
One accused him of persuading a widow to invest in nonexistent real estate.
Another involved unpaid loans.
The third alleged check fraud.
My stomach turned.
“Does Victoria know?”
Martin asked.
“I doubt it.”
“Could Sabrina?”
“I don't know anymore.”
That answer frightened me.
At 2:15 a.m., my phone buzzed.
Victoria.
Where are you?
I ignored it.
Another message.
Don't start acting dramatic. We need you tomorrow morning to pay the remaining florist balance.
I stared at the screen.
Not Where are you, are you okay?
Not I'm sorry.
Money.
Always money.
Then Sabrina texted.
Dad, Mom says you left. Please don't ruin tomorrow because you're emotional.
I read it twice.
Then I typed:
I hope your wedding is everything you deserve.
My finger hovered over send.
I deleted it.
It sounded cruel.
I didn't want cruelty.
I wanted clarity.
Instead, I wrote:
I won't cause a scene. I promise.
That I sent.
Martin watched me.
“You meant that?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
At three in the morning, he booked me a hotel room.
I showered there but couldn't sleep.
At six, I made coffee and watched the sky brighten over San Diego.
My phone had thirty-one notifications.
Victoria.
Sabrina.
The florist.
A catering manager.
And one message from someone I barely knew.
Logan's mother.
Mr. Mercer, this is Diane Caldwell. I apologize for contacting you so early. Could we speak privately before the ceremony? Something concerning happened last night.
I called immediately.
She answered on the first ring.
“Mr. Mercer?”
“Call me Glenn.”
There was a pause.
“Glenn, I don't know how to say this.”
“Try.”
“Raymond approached my husband after the rehearsal dinner.”
My spine stiffened.
“What did he want?”
“An investment.”
Of course.
“He claimed you were planning to sell Bayfront Pavilion after the wedding,” Diane continued. “He said he had authority to arrange the deal.”
I stood so quickly that coffee spilled onto the table.
“He said what?”
“He offered my husband a forty-percent ownership share.”
My voice went cold.
“For how much?”
“Two hundred fifty thousand dollars.”
I closed my eyes.
“Diane, Raymond owns nothing.”
Silence.
Then she whispered:
“I suspected that.”
“How much did your husband give him?”
“Nothing.”
Relief.
“But someone else did.”
My eyes opened.
“Who?”
“Logan.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Diane's voice shook.
“He gave Raymond fifty thousand dollars yesterday.”
“For what?”
“A down payment on the future he thought he was building with Sabrina.”
May you like
And suddenly the wedding was no longer only about betrayal.
Someone else was about to become a victim.
