Chapter 4: Three Other Names
Cameron's attorney was a woman named Grace Okafor.
She had been his family's lawyer for eleven years, and she had the particular quality of sounding completely calm while delivering information that was not calm at all.
He called her from the parking garage beneath the event space at 10:47 p.m.
"Logan said there are three other signatories on the holding company," Cameron told her.
"I heard you the first time," Grace said.
"Give me until morning."
"He said it like it was a threat."
"It probably is one.
That doesn't mean it changes anything." A pause.
"How is Natalie?"
Cameron looked back toward the building entrance.
Through the glass doors he could see Natalie sitting at one of the cleared tables, Melissa beside her, the envelope open between them.
"Still processing," he said.
"That's fair.
It was a significant evening."
"Grace."
"Yes."
"If one of those signatories is someone connected to Natalie — her family, her employer, anyone she knows — I need to know before she does."
A brief silence.
"Understood," Grace said.
"I'll call you at seven."
He ended the call and stood in the garage for a moment before going back inside.
The remaining guests had gone.
The event staff were quietly stacking chairs at the edges of the room.
The projector screen had been rolled up.
The birthday cake sat untouched on its table, one candle still upright in the center.
Natalie looked up when he walked in.
"Melissa told me everything," she said.
"What she knew.
What she told you.
When."
Cameron sat down across from her.
"Are you angry?" he asked.
"I don't know what I am." She looked at the envelope.
"You spent fourteen months investigating my life and didn't tell me."
"I spent fourteen months trying to protect you from something I wasn't sure you were part of."
"That's the same thing."
"It's not."
She looked at him.
"You could have come to me in month one."
"And if you had known?
What would you have done?"
Her mouth opened.
Then closed.
"You would have confronted Logan," Cameron said.
"He would have known I was watching.
The money would have moved somewhere I couldn't trace it.
And you would have spent the rest of your life wondering if I had been wrong."
Natalie looked down at the table.
Melissa put a hand over hers briefly, then stood.
"I'm going to get some water.
Does anyone want anything?"
Neither of them answered.
Melissa walked toward the bar at the far end of the room.
Natalie said, "How much is gone?"
"In total, across both transfers, $78,000.
Grace believes there may be a third transfer we haven't located yet.
Possibly routed through a different account."
"Our savings."
"Most of it."
She pressed two fingers against her temple.
"I signed documents, Cameron.
For that joint account.
Logan was there when I signed them.
He witnessed them."
"I know."
"Does that make me liable?"
"Grace says no.
Your signature was on the account creation, not the transfers.
The transfers were initiated through Logan's access credentials.
But—" He stopped.
"But what?"
"The holding company is registered in your name."
The chair scraped slightly as Natalie sat back.
"What?"
"Darnell Pruitt filed the incorporation documents eighteen months ago.
The listed owner of record is Natalie A.
Blake, Atlanta, Georgia."
Her face had gone the color of the white tablecloth.
"I never—" She stopped.
"I never signed anything for a company."
"I know."
"Cameron, I never even heard of Darnell Pruitt until tonight."
"I know that too."
"Then how—"
"Your signature was notarized on the incorporation filing," he said.
"The notary is a woman named Sandra Fitch.
She operates out of a UPS store in Smyrna." He watched her face.
"Grace ran her license.
It's valid.
But three of her recent notarizations have been flagged by the state bar for irregularities."
Natalie stared at him.
"Someone forged my signature."
"That's what Grace believes."
"Logan forged my signature.
To put a company in my name.
So that if any of this unraveled—"
"You would be the one holding it," Cameron said.
The room felt very still.
Melissa had stopped halfway back from the bar.
She was standing with two glasses of water, listening.
Natalie's voice came out quiet and flat.
"He was going to let me take the fall."
Cameron said nothing.
"He told me I was the gift he wanted." Her laugh was short and without any warmth at all.
"He was setting me up for fourteen months and he walked into my birthday party with champagne."
She stood up abruptly.
"Where is Grace right now?"
"Home.
I told her seven a.m."
"Call her back." Natalie picked up the envelope.
"Tell her we need to talk tonight."
Cameron looked at her for a moment.
Then he picked up his phone.
He was halfway through dialing when it buzzed in his hand.
An unknown number.
A text message, four words.
May you like
*Back off.
Last warning.*
