Chapter 5 - A House Built on Quicksand
A forged signature on a federal trust document wasn't a civil dispute.
It was a class-B felony.
Reid backed away from the counter until his spine hit the kitchen cabinets. He looked down at his shoes, his chest heaving as if he had run a marathon. "No. No, my father wouldn't... he told me it was done."
"Your father was desperate, Reid," Arthur said grimly. "And stupid. He assumed that a traumatized twenty-two-year-old girl would never question anything, that she would live out her life grateful for your scraps. And for ten years, you helped him perpetuate that lie. Every dividend check from that land was funneled into Sterling Holdings through shell corporations in Delaware."
"Mara..." Reid took a step toward me, his voice cracking, tears actually welling in the corners of his eyes. "Mara, please. Look at me. I was twenty-four. My father controlled everything. He told me that if I didn't get that land, we would be out on the street. I was terrified!"
"You were terrified?" I echoed, the word tasting like ash in my mouth.
I stepped into his personal space, close enough to see the sweat glistening on his temples, close enough to smell the expensive cologne he had bought with my grandfather’s money.
"You watched me stand in that bridal suite," I said, every word hitting him like a hammer. "I had spent five months hand-stitching my mother’s lace veil because we couldn't afford a seamstress. You watched Callie and your cousins throw rotten eggs through the transom window. You watched them laugh. You heard me choking on my own tears, begging someone to bring me water, begging someone to tell me how I was going to walk down that aisle."
"I... I came in to comfort you," he stammered.
"You came in to hand Callie her phone!" I shouted, the fury finally breaking through my composure, raw and scorching. "You stood there and said, *'Break her down so she signs it!'* You held the door so she could film me scrubbing yolk out of my mother's veil with paper towels from a public bathroom! And then you walked down that aisle, looked me in the eye, and swore before God that you would cherish me!"
"Mara, I did cherish you!" he cried, grabbing for my wrist.
I pulled away with such force that his hand slapped uselessly against the air.
"Don't you ever touch me again," I said, my voice dropping back to that terrifying, frigid whisper. "For ten years, you treated me like a stray dog you let sleep on the porch. Every time Beverly criticized my clothes, my background, my cooking, you told me to be patient. You told me she was 'old-fashioned.' You let your sister mock me at Thanksgiving tables. You let your cousins make jokes about rotten eggs every single anniversary!"
"It was just teasing, Mara!" Callie sobbed, sliding down against the island, her mascara running in dark streaks down her cheeks. "I didn't know about the money! I swear to God, I didn't know about the land! Mom told me you were trying to trap Reid for his money! She told me you were a gold digger!"
"A gold digger?" I laughed, a bitter, hollow sound. "Callie, your trust fund—the one that paid for your art degree in Paris, the one that buys your luxury cars and your penthouse in Belltown—every single dollar came from the timber rights on my grandfather’s mountain."
Callie turned white. She looked at Beverly, her eyes pleading for a denial. "Mom? Tell her she's lying. Mom!"
Beverly didn't speak. She looked at me with cold, venomous hatred, but beneath the hatred was something she had never shown in her entire life: utter, absolute defeat.
"Get out of my house," Beverly whispered, though the command lacked all authority.
"You still don't understand, do you, Beverly?" Arthur Vance said, closing his briefcase with a resounding snap. "This house—the Sterling Estate on Mercer Island—was put up as collateral against the development loans for the Davenport project. Loans that were secured using the forged title to Mara's land."
Arthur smiled a cold, predatory smile.
May you like
"Two hours ago, the bank issued an immediate freeze on all Sterling Holdings collateral pending the criminal investigation. This house doesn't belong to you. By tomorrow afternoon, it belongs to the receiver. And by extension... to Mara."
***
