Chapter 7: Before Monday
Grace arrived at seven fifty-eight.
She came through the front door with a leather portfolio under one arm and a coffee she had not touched, set it on the kitchen table, and opened the portfolio before she sat down.
"The AG's office confirmed the referral is active," she said.
"A financial crimes investigator was assigned Friday evening.
His name is Marcus Webb.
I've worked with him before.
He's thorough."
"Someone told Logan," Cameron said.
"Or told Pruitt, who told Logan.
The AG's office has forty staff.
I can't control who talks." Grace pulled a printed page from the portfolio.
"What I can control is what we give Webb before Logan's people have a chance to move anything."
"What do you need?" Natalie asked.
"Everything you have.
The envelope Melissa gave you.
The original bank statements.
Any text messages from Logan over the past two years — even ones that seem unimportant.
Any emails.
Any documents you signed in his presence."
Natalie got up without a word and went to the bedroom.
Cameron looked at Grace.
"The SEC threat."
"Empty," Grace said.
"Your firm's compliance record is clean.
I checked before I came over.
There is nothing there for the SEC to find, and Logan knows it.
That message was designed to make you hesitate, not to follow through."
"He's done this before."
"Pruitt has.
Two previous schemes, both abandoned before prosecution because the primary target withdrew.
Logan is newer to this.
He's following Pruitt's playbook, but he doesn't have Pruitt's patience." She picked up her coffee.
"That's an advantage for us."
Natalie came back carrying a manila folder, her phone, and a small cardboard box.
She set them on the table.
"Two years of texts," she said.
"Printed and saved to a drive.
I did it last night after we got home.
I couldn't sleep."
Grace looked at the box.
"When did you print these?"
"Three in the morning."
Grace opened the folder.
She scanned the first page, then the second, then stopped.
"Natalie." She turned the page around.
"This text.
October, fourteen months ago.
Logan asks you to add him as an authorized user on the joint account.
You said no."
"I remember that.
He said it was for convenience, in case he ever needed to cover something for me in an emergency.
I thought it was strange and I said no."
"He asked twice.
You said no both times." Grace set the page down.
"He didn't need authorized user access.
He already had your credentials from the account setup documents you signed in 2019.
But the fact that he asked — and that you refused — establishes that you actively limited his access.
That is significant."
Cameron said, "He was building a paper trail that pointed to her."
"He was trying to.
She didn't cooperate." Grace looked at Natalie.
"You protected yourself without knowing you were doing it."
Natalie looked at the text on the page.
Her own words from fourteen months ago.
*I'd rather keep the account just between Cameron and me.
Sorry.*
She had typed that on an ordinary Tuesday and forgotten about it by Wednesday.
Grace's phone rang.
She glanced at the screen and answered immediately.
"Webb." A pause.
"Yes.
I'm with them now." Another pause, longer.
"How many?" She reached for a pen.
"Spell the second one." She wrote something.
"When?" She looked up at Cameron.
"We'll be there."
She ended the call.
"Marcus Webb executed a search warrant on Darnell Pruitt's Marietta office at seven this morning," she said.
"They found documentation for six shell companies.
Meridian Residential Partners is one of them.
The others involve different primary names — different victims."
"How many people did they target?" Natalie asked.
"Webb says at least four that he can confirm so far.
Possibly more." Grace capped her pen.
"Logan Pierce's name appears on three of the six companies.
Warren Holt appears on two.
Pruitt is on all six."
The kitchen was quiet for a moment.
"They ran this scheme multiple times," Cameron said.
"Yes.
Natalie wasn't the first.
She may not have been the intended primary — Pruitt tends to target people with larger asset bases.
But Logan brought her in and Pruitt used what was available."
Natalie set her hands flat on the table.
"The other victims," she said.
"Do they know yet?"
"Webb's team is making contact this morning."
"Are any of them — did any of them lose more than we did?"
Grace paused.
"One family lost $340,000," she said.
"Over three years.
They thought they were invested in a legitimate residential development fund."
Natalie closed her eyes briefly.
"I want to help them," she said.
"Whatever Webb needs from me.
Whatever helps the case against all three of them."
Grace looked at her for a moment.
"I'll tell him that," she said.
Cameron's phone buzzed.
He looked at the screen.
Logan Pierce.
Calling directly.
Not a text.
Not an unknown number.
His actual name on the screen.
Cameron answered it and put it on speaker.
"Cameron." Logan's voice was measured.
Careful.
"I think we should talk before this gets any further."
"I'm listening," Cameron said.
"I know about Webb.
I know about the warrant.
I want you to understand — I was not the architect of this.
Pruitt brought me in.
I was an investor, same as the others.
I didn't know about the forgery.
I didn't know Natalie's name was on the incorporation documents until last night."
"You listed yourself as C.
Pierce on the same filing," Cameron said.
A brief silence.
"That was Pruitt's doing.
He needed a fourth signatory and used my initial without my full knowledge."
"Logan." Natalie's voice was quiet.
"Stop."
Another silence.
"Natalie—"
"You came to my birthday party with champagne," she said.
"You stood in front of sixty people and let me humiliate my husband.
You did that because you needed one more night where neither of us was looking at the accounts." Her voice didn't shake.
"Don't call my husband's phone and tell him Pruitt did this.
We have two years of your texts.
We have the filing.
We have the photograph of you and Pruitt and Holt at a gala eighteen months ago." She paused.
"Talk to your lawyer."
May you like
She reached over and ended the call.
Grace was already writing.
