Chapter 6: The Alderman Group
Patricia knew the name.
She didn't say so immediately.
She set my phone down, picked up her own, and typed something.
Then she turned her screen toward me.
Alderman Group LLC.
Registered in Delaware.
Listed managing member: a holding company called Crestfield Ventures.
"Does Crestfield mean anything to you?" she asked.
"No."
She typed again.
"Crestfield Ventures.
Registered eighteen months ago." She looked up.
"The registered agent address is a mail forwarding service in Bethesda."
Bethesda.
Eight miles from where Ethan's office had been for the past four years.
"Can you find out who owns it?" I asked.
"I can find out who's listed.
Whether that reflects the actual ownership is a different question." She closed her laptop.
"The message you received — someone wanted you to ask about this before we filed for disclosure.
That means whoever sent it knows that disclosure will surface it."
"And they want it surfaced."
"Or they want you to surface it yourself, so they don't have to." Patricia looked at me steadily.
"Someone in Ethan's circle is not on Ethan's side."
I thought about that.
"His business partner," I said.
"Joel Marsh.
They've been together for six years.
There was a falling out last spring.
Ethan never told me the details, but he stopped mentioning Joel's name entirely."
"Do you have contact information for Joel Marsh?"
"Not personally.
But I can find it."
"Don't contact him yet." Patricia held up one finger.
"If he sent that message, he's already made a choice.
Let him make the next one on his own timeline.
If we reach out too early, he gets cautious."
She stood and walked to her filing cabinet.
Pulled out a folder and set it on the desk between us.
"I had my paralegal pull preliminary records this morning.
Before you arrived." She opened the folder.
"Ethan has three credit lines I wasn't aware of when you first contacted me.
Two are recent.
One was opened fourteen months ago for two hundred and forty thousand dollars."
My hands were still on my lap.
"Against what collateral?" I asked.
"That's what I'm still determining." She looked at me carefully.
"Maren.
Is it possible Ethan used your name on any of these accounts without your knowledge?"
The room was very quiet.
"He doesn't have my signature," I said.
"Or my social security number.
Or access to my credit."
"People find ways around that."
I looked at the folder.
"Pull my credit report," I said.
"Today."
"Already requested." She closed the folder.
"There's one more thing.
The estate rental last weekend — the Potomac property."
"Yes."
"The event was catered, staffed, and partially funded through a vendor account registered to Alderman Group LLC."
I sat very still.
"Ethan used the Alderman Group to pay for his own party," I said.
"Part of it.
Which means either the Alderman Group has legitimate revenue, or someone else's money moved through it to fund an event designed to make Ethan look successful to his business contacts." She paused.
"Either way, a judge is going to want to know whose money that was."
I thought about ninety people on a manicured lawn.
Live jazz.
Expensive flowers.
I thought about Diane in her ivory pantsuit, taking plates from my daughters' hands.
All of it paid for with money that didn't belong to Ethan.
"File the disclosure motion," I said.
"Today."
Patricia picked up her pen.
"There's one more thing you should know before I do." She looked at me directly.
"If this is what it looks like, Ethan is going to feel cornered the moment that motion lands.
Cornered people make bad decisions."
"I know."
"Do you have somewhere safe for you and the girls?"
"The house he doesn't know the address of," I said.
"Yes."
May you like
She almost smiled.
"Good," she said, and started writing.
