Chapter 7: What Paige Knew
She called at noon.
I was in my car outside the police station, having just spent two hours with a detective named Carla Reyes who had taken every document Marcus prepared and asked me the same questions four different ways, which Diane had told me was a good sign.
I almost didn't answer.
Then I did.
"Paige."
"Ava." Her voice was different from the text — smaller, like something had been let out of it.
"Are you somewhere you can talk?"
"I'm alone.
Talk."
A breath.
"I didn't know about the accounts.
I want you to know that.
I found out last night when my mother called me to — to ask me to call you.
And I heard her and Weston talking before she knew I was still on the line."
I waited.
"He's done this before," Paige said.
The words landed like a flat stone dropped into still water.
"What do you mean."
"His last girlfriend.
Before you.
Her name was Sophie.
They were together two years.
She had money — not as much as you, but she had savings, a condo.
When they broke up, she was missing almost sixty thousand dollars.
She didn't press charges.
My mother talked her out of it." Paige's voice dropped.
"I was twenty-three.
I didn't understand what I was watching.
I thought it was just a bad breakup."
"And now?"
"Now I'm watching it happen again and I'm not twenty-three." A pause.
"I'm sorry, Ava.
I should have said something.
I told myself it wasn't my place.
I told myself you seemed too smart for it to go the same way." Another pause.
"That was a cowardly thing to think."
I looked through the windshield at the police station entrance.
"Paige.
Will you give me Sophie's last name?"
Silence.
"It could help," I said.
"A pattern is stronger than a single incident."
"Her name is Sophie Drummond.
She's in Portland now, I think.
She has a small business — a flower studio." A short, sad sound.
"She would have liked you, I think.
You're similar."
"Will you put any of this in writing?
A statement?"
The silence stretched long enough that I thought I'd lost her.
"Yes," she said finally.
"I'll write it.
I don't — I love my brother.
But I don't think love means watching someone do this twice."
"No," I said.
"It doesn't."
"Ava." Her voice cracked slightly at the edges.
"How are you?
The baby—"
"We're both fine."
"I'm glad." She sounded like she meant it.
"I'm sorry it took me this long to call."
I forwarded Paige's number to Marcus before I'd even started the car.
He replied in four minutes: *Sophie Drummond — already found her.
She'll talk.
Call you at three.*
I drove home.
Renata had made soup — actual soup, from scratch, the kind our mother used to make — and was sitting at my kitchen table with her laptop open and a look on her face that meant she had been doing research she hadn't been asked to do.
"Hale Digital Ventures," she said, without looking up.
"I found a second client."
I sat down across from her.
"It's not just your agency," Renata said.
"There's a second retainer agreement.
Different company name, but the same registered address — Corinne's house.
The second client is a property management firm." She turned the laptop toward me.
"A property management firm that handles the building where Weston's startup office is leased."
"So the startup is paying rent to a building managed by a company that's paying Weston's shell company."
"Which means the rent money is partially coming back to him."
We looked at each other.
"He built a whole system," I said.
"He and Corinne built it," Renata said.
"Look at the incorporation date on the property firm."
I looked.
It was older than Hale Digital Ventures by three years.
Corinne had started this before Weston met me.
I called Marcus.
He picked up before it rang.
"I was just about to call you," he said.
"Sophie Drummond will give a full statement.
And Ava — she's not the only one.
There's a third woman.
Her name is Claire.
She's in Boston.
She lost her business."
The soup went cold in the bowl in front of me.
I didn't notice until much later.
"Marcus," I said.
"How do we make sure this doesn't happen to anyone else?"
"By making sure it's all on the record," he said.
"Every piece.
Every woman.
Every account." A pause.
"Are you ready for it to get louder before it gets quieter?"
I thought about Weston's face in the driveway.
The cold calculation.
The careful, law-abiding speed as he drove away.
"Yes," I said.
"I'm ready."
My phone buzzed.
A text from a number I didn't recognize.
*Ava.
This is Weston.
New number.
I think we both know this has gone far enough.
Meet me.
One hour.
I'll explain everything.
If you don't come, I'll have no choice but to contact your clients directly and let them know their agency is under fraud investigation.
Your choice.*
I screenshotted it.
Sent it to Marcus.
Sent it to Diane.
Sent it to Detective Reyes.
May you like
Then I set the phone down and picked up my spoon.
The soup was cold, but I ate it anyway.
