Chapter 5: The Third Name
The name on the incorporation document was Diane Reeves.
My mother had been gone for nineteen years.
I read it twice.
Then I turned the page over as if there might be a correction on the back.
"That's not possible," I said.
"I thought the same thing." Raymond leaned forward.
"But the incorporation date is eleven years ago.
Same year as your father's original trust."
Eleven years ago.
The same year my father had written the trust that split the company equally between Marcus and me.
The same year — I did the math without meaning to — that my parents had finalized their divorce after my mother left for Portland and a life that had nothing to do with Charleston or the company or any of us.
"She's listed as a thirty percent silent partner," Raymond said.
"The holding company was set up to absorb your share of the inheritance.
If you had signed last night, your interest would have transferred to an entity your mother partially owns."
"My mother doesn't know anything about this company," I said.
"She walked away from everything when she left.
She didn't want the money.
She didn't want the business."
"I know that's what happened publicly." Raymond hesitated.
"But her signature is on the incorporation documents.
Notarized.
And not by me."
I put the page down on the table.
My brother had forged my father's signature to steal the trust amendment.
Had he also forged my mother's signature to build the vehicle he planned to funnel my inheritance into?
Or had my mother signed those documents herself?
I called her from the parking lot.
She picked up on the fourth ring, her voice carrying the slight echo of her kitchen in Portland.
"Naomi.
This is a surprise."
"Mom." I kept my voice even.
"I need to ask you something and I need you to be completely honest with me."
A pause.
"All right."
"Did you ever sign any documents related to Dad's company?
In the last eleven years?
Anything at all — incorporation papers, partnership agreements, anything with the name Hale-Reeves Capital on it?"
The silence on her end lasted long enough that I knew the answer before she gave it.
"Where did you hear that name?" she said.
"Answer the question first."
Another pause.
"Marcus called me about eight months after the divorce was finalized.
He said your father was restructuring some assets and needed my signature on a few documents for tax purposes.
He said it was just a formality.
That it would protect my settlement." Her voice had gone careful.
"He sent a notary to my apartment.
I signed what they put in front of me.
I didn't read it closely.
I trusted that it was what Marcus said it was."
My hand tightened on the phone.
"Mom.
That company — the one you signed documents for — Marcus was planning to transfer my entire inheritance into it.
Last night he tried to get me to sign over my share of Dad's estate to that holding company."
The silence this time was different.
"He told me it was a tax document," she said.
Very quietly.
"It wasn't."
I heard her set something down on a hard surface.
A mug, maybe.
A glass.
"Naomi." Her voice had changed completely.
"I didn't know.
I swear to you I did not know."
"I believe you," I said.
And I did.
My mother had faults — she had left, she had chosen distance over difficulty, she had let years go by without fighting hard enough to close them — but she had never been dishonest.
Not once in my life had I caught her in a lie.
"But I need you to understand what this means.
Your name is on those documents.
If Marcus goes down for this, and he will, investigators are going to find your signature."
"What do I do?"
"You call an attorney today.
Not tomorrow.
Today." I paused.
"And then I need you to give a statement.
Everything Marcus told you.
Every document he sent.
The notary's name if you remember it.
The date.
Everything."
"Yes." No hesitation.
"Whatever you need."
I stood in the parking lot for a moment after I hung up.
Marcus had used everyone.
He had used Raymond's youth and his trust.
He had used Victor's loyalty to his son.
He had used my mother's signature without her understanding what she was signing.
He had used my grief, counting on the month after my father's death to be the window in which I was too raw to look closely at anything.
He had built something careful and layered and he had done it over years.
I walked back inside.
Raymond was still at the table.
"My mother didn't know," I said.
"I didn't think she did."
"I need the name of the notary who handled her documents."
He opened his phone.
"I have it."
I sat down and took out my own phone and opened a new note.
We had the forensic comparison.
We had Raymond's copies.
We had the recordings.
We had my mother's statement coming.
We had a notary who had signed off on documents in two states.
Gerald was pulling the company financials.
I thought about what Marcus had said the night before.
*Forty employees.
People who have worked there for decades.*
He had said it like a threat.
Like I was the one who might hurt them.
I thought about my father building that company from a single office on King Street.
I thought about the Christmas parties he had thrown every year, the bonuses he had hand-signed, the employee he had kept on payroll for eight months after a cancer diagnosis because he said the man had a family and deserved the time.
Marcus had used those forty people as a shield.
I was going to make sure they were protected when the shield came down.
My phone buzzed.
Gerald.
*Accountant is in.
First pass of the books is done.
Naomi — there's more.
Call me when you can talk privately.*
I looked at Raymond.
"I have to go," I said.
"Is it bad?"
I picked up my bag.
"It's worse than the trust amendment."
His face went still.
"How much worse?"
"I don't know yet," I said.
"But Marcus said the company was in the middle of a deal.
A real deal.
I think I need to find out exactly what kind of deal — and who else is involved."
I left him at the table and walked out to my car.
Gerald answered before the first ring finished.
"Talk to me," I said.
"The company has been used as a vehicle," he said.
"Over the past two years, approximately four point three million dollars has moved through accounts that don't appear in any shareholder report."
Four million.
"Where did it go?"
"That," Gerald said, "is what we are trying to determine.
But Naomi — some of it came in.
Not just out."
"What does that mean?"
May you like
"It means someone has been using your father's company to move money for someone else," he said.
"And I don't think your father knew."
