Chapter 4 - Christmas at the Emergency Room
The doctor wrapped my burn and told me to document how it happened.
I almost laughed. My marriage had become a pile of documents I had never signed.
Charles sat beside me in the emergency room waiting area while a nurse finished wrapping my hand. He had driven me himself after Diane complained that calling an ambulance would "make a scene."
Ryan had not come.
"How long have you known?" I asked Charles. "About the trust? Since your father created it. About the forged loans? Three days."
"And you waited until Christmas?"
He flinched.
"I wanted proof before I accused my son of a felony."
"So you brought the proof to dinner."
"I came home because I found something worse."
I stared at him.
He lowered his voice.
"One of the lenders was preparing to seize the house. Ryan gave them a notarized consent form supposedly signed by you."
"Notarized by who?"
"Victor Sloan."
The Bennett family attorney.
The man who had handled our prenup.
The man who had smiled at my wedding and called me "the sensible one."
My chest tightened.
"Victor knows my signature."
"Exactly."
Charles handed me a photocopy.
The notary stamp looked real.
My signature did not.
Underneath it was a line I had never seen:
SPOUSAL CONSENT TO ENCUMBER BENEFICIAL PROPERTY.
I read it twice.
"Ryan didn't just borrow money. He used my trust as collateral."
Charles nodded.
"And someone inside the trust office gave him the account number."
I thought about Diane's smile when I took off my ring.
Good. Then leave.
She had wanted me gone before I knew what I owned.
A police officer entered the waiting room and asked for me.
I gave a statement about the slap.
When I finished, Charles's phone rang.
He answered.
His face changed.
"What do you mean the safe is empty?"
He stood.
"Who was still at the house?"
A pause.
Then he looked at me.
"Diane and Ryan are gone."
"Gone where?"
"Nobody knows."
May you like
He lowered the phone.
"And the original trust papers are gone with them."
