Chapter 7: Eight O'Clock
Grace's office was on the fourth floor of a building that smelled like old carpet and serious work.
She met me at the door with coffee and a yellow legal pad already half full of notes.
"Daniel Frey sent everything," she said.
"Fourteen months of correspondence.
It's worse than you described."
"How much worse?"
"Margaret wasn't just moving money.
She was building a case to have you removed as signatory from your own business account.
She had Daniel draft a competency concern letter — the kind used when a business owner is deemed unfit to manage finances.
It was ready to file."
I set my coffee down.
"On what grounds?"
"Erratic financial behavior.
Which she was manufacturing through the delayed transactions and the forged invoices." Grace turned the legal pad toward me.
"If this had gone one more month, she would have had enough paper to take it to your business bank and request an emergency review.
You could have lost signing authority on your own company."
"While the divorce was running simultaneously."
"Leaving you with no income, no assets, and an active fraud flag on your name." Grace looked at me.
"It's thorough.
I'll give her that."
"She told me she'd been planning it since before the wedding."
Grace wrote something down.
"She said that on the recording?"
"Yes."
"Good." She clicked her pen.
"Here's where we are.
I filed the complaint at seven forty-five this morning.
Financial crjmes has the recording, the bank statements, the forged invoices, and Daniel Frey's correspondence.
A detective named Paulson will call you this afternoon to take a formal statement."
"And my husband?"
"He's named in the complaint.
As is Margaret." She paused.
"He called my office this morning.
Before nine."
I looked up.
"What did he say?"
"He said you had stolen private documents from a family property and that he wanted to discuss a resolution before things escalated." Grace's expression didn't change.
"I told him I was not able to speak with him and that he should contact his own legal representation immediately."
"How did he take that?"
"He said, and I'm quoting directly: 'She doesn't have the nerve to actually do this.
She'll come around.'"
The room was quiet for a moment.
"He still thinks I'm going to back down," I said.
"Yes," Grace said.
"Which means he hasn't spoken to his mother yet this morning.
Or she hasn't told him how far it went." She folded her hands on the desk.
"Either way, they are about to have a very difficult conversation.
And we will be several steps ahead of it."
My phone buzzed on the table between us.
We both looked at it.
It was a text from Margaret.
*I think we should meet.
Just the two of us.
I have something to offer you that changes everything.
Please.*
Grace read it.
Then she looked at me.
"Don't reply," she said.
"I know."
May you like
"But keep it."
I already had.
