Chapter 9 - Chloe’s Signature
Chloe remembered one page.
A blank signature box.
Gwendolyn had placed a copy of my driver’s license beside it.
“She told me you were traveling and needed something signed.”
“You were sixteen.”
“I know.”
“What did you sign?”
“I don’t know.”
The failed quitclaim deed from three years earlier.
The one that tried to transfer my sixty percent of the house to Dad.
Chloe looked sick.
“Can I get arrested?”
“Tell Maya the truth.”
“Will you help me?”
I thought about the bedroom.
The smirks.
The years of entitlement.
Then I remembered eighteen was not the same as evil.
“Yes.”
She cried harder.
Maya interviewed her with a separate attorney present.
Chloe described other papers.
Car leases.
Business forms.
An application for a credit card she thought was in her own name.
It wasn’t.
Gwendolyn had opened a business card using Chloe’s Social Security number and personally guaranteed it with a forged Samuel Morgan signature.
Gwendolyn didn’t build a family.
She built access.
Access to Dad.
To my trust.
To Chloe’s identity.
To property.
To credit.
Then the forensic accountant found a transfer that did not fit.
$125,000 from Morgan Family Holdings to an account called ELM Consulting.
No business activity.
No website.
Owner: Elaine M. Morgan.
My mother’s exact name.
Except Mom had been dead eleven years.
I stared at the filing.
“Someone created a company in Mom’s name?”
Maya nodded.
“Two years after she died.”
“Who?”
Registered agent:
Gwendolyn Price.
Her maiden name.
Chloe whispered, “Why would Mom use your mother’s name?”
We traced the account.
Over nine years, $612,000 had moved through ELM Consulting.
Some from rentals.
Some from Dad’s accounts.
Some from my trust.
Where did it go?
Mostly cash withdrawals.
Then one recent transfer.
$90,000.
Recipient:
Paradise Valley Residential LLC.
I stared at the screen.
That was the company that owned my hillside house.
Except I owned that LLC.
And I had never received ninety thousand dollars from Gwendolyn.
May you like
Maya looked at me.
“Paige, somebody is trying to make it look like your house was bought with stolen trust money.”
