Chapter 5 - My Brother’s Address
Mark opened the door wearing sweatpants and a confused expression.
When Ortiz showed him the holding-company documents, he laughed.
Not nervously.
Honestly.
“That company isn’t mine.”
“The mailing address is yours,” Ortiz said.
“So are forty pieces of junk mail a week.”
He disappeared into his office and returned with a stack of envelopes.
One carried the same holding-company name.
Northline Asset Partners.
Unopened.
“I thought it was advertising.”
Ortiz put on gloves and opened it.
Inside was a tax notice addressed to Northline Asset Partners, care of Mark Mercer.
Mark sat down hard.
“Somebody used my address.”
I watched him carefully.
“You knew Vanessa was having financial trouble.”
His eyes snapped to mine.
“How do you know that?”
“Because you just answered a question nobody asked.”
The room changed.
Mark cursed under his breath.
Then he admitted that Vanessa had approached him eight months earlier asking for a private loan. She said the restaurant was drowning in debt after a failed expansion.
“How much?” Ortiz asked.
“Half a million.”
“Did you give it to her?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because she offered collateral she didn’t own.”
My stomach dropped.
“What collateral?”
Mark looked at me.
“Claire’s shares.”
I stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
“You knew?”
“I knew Vanessa was desperate. I didn’t know Claire was missing because of it.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I thought you already knew Claire had promised the shares.”
“She never did.”
Mark rubbed both hands over his face.
“There’s more.”
He told us Vanessa had not come alone.
Lucas had been with her.
And so had a lawyer.
A man named Peter Sloan.
I knew the name instantly.
Peter Sloan had represented my family for fourteen years.
He had drafted Claire’s trust.
He had helped police organize her missing-person paperwork.
He had looked me in the eye and said there was nothing more we could legally do.
Ortiz was already reaching for her phone.
But before she could dial, Mark said, “You won’t find him at his office.”
“Why?”
May you like
Mark turned his laptop toward us.
Peter Sloan had boarded a flight to Montreal that morning.
