Chapter 14 - The Fire in the Garage
Gwendolyn had burned a box of old banking papers.
A neighbor saw smoke and called 911.
The preservation order made destroying financial records a serious problem.
Gwendolyn claimed she was burning “personal trash.”
Fire investigators found shredded trust statements in the ashes.
Maya looked at me.
“She’s panicking.”
Good.
Police searched the garage and found a second phone taped behind a shelf.
The phone contained messages between Gwendolyn and a man named Victor Lane.
Former title-company employee.
He had helped create the forged seller authorization.
Messages went back three years.
Gwendolyn:
Paige never checks county records.
Victor:
What if she does?
Gwendolyn:
She won’t. She still thinks Samuel would never hurt her.
I had to stop reading.
That sentence was too accurate.
Dad read it too.
He sat down hard.
“I did hurt you.”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
Then he did something new.
He did not explain.
He did not say Gwendolyn pressured him.
He did not say family.
He just said, “I’m sorry.”
I believed the apology.
I did not erase the damage.
Both could exist.
Victor Lane agreed to cooperate after police contacted him.
He confirmed Gwendolyn paid him for document templates and title access.
But he gave us something unexpected.
“She wasn’t planning to keep the old house.”
“We know,” Maya said.
“No. You don’t.”
He produced an email.
The buyer was not an ordinary family.
It was an investment company.
Desert Star Investments.
Gwendolyn’s company.
She planned to use the fraudulent $2.1 million sale to transfer the childhood house into her own LLC.
Then refinance it again.
She wasn’t selling.
She was stealing the entire property through paperwork.
Dad read the email.
“That would leave me with what?”
Victor looked at him.
“Nothing.”
Then Victor handed Maya one final file.
A voice memo.
Gwendolyn’s voice:
Once Paige is out of the house, Samuel will sign whatever I put in front of him.
Then a man asked:
And Chloe?
May you like
Gwendolyn laughed.
Chloe’s easy.
