Chapter 3 - THE FORECLOSURE OF LIES
The heavy oak doors of the ballroom closed behind me, cutting off the frantic murmurs of the elite. I didn't wait to see Richard's reaction to Vanessa's question. I kept walking toward the exit, my phone already pressed to my ear.
"Mara," I said as the cool night air hit my face. "Vanessa just mentioned a beach house and the FBI. What did you find?"
My attorney's voice crackled, sharp and professional. "I triggered the asset freeze, Eleanor. But the system flagged a massive discrepancy. Richard hasn't just been buying Vanessa expensive dinners. He's been laundering company funds through a shell LLC to purchase a property in Malibu."
I stopped at the valet stand. "A beach house for Vanessa?"
"That's the twist," Mara said. "It's not in Vanessa's name. It's in the name of a woman named Maya Lin. And Eleanor... the FBI raid wasn't us. Someone tipped them off about offshore wire fraud before I even filed the paperwork."
My chest tightened. For twenty-six years, I thought I knew every flaw my husband had. Arrogance, greed, infidelity. But this was something else entirely.
I climbed into my waiting town car. "Send me the address."
The drive up the coast took an hour. When I arrived, the flashing red and blue lights illuminated the crashing waves. The house was a modern glass monstrosity, stark against the cliffside. The federal agents were already packing up boxes of files, but they hadn't arrested anyone.
I walked past the yellow tape. As the owner of the holding company funding the shell LLC, I had the legal right to be there. Inside, the house was a wreck of overturned drawers and shattered glass.
But it wasn't the mess that caught my attention. It was the framed photograph on the mantel.
I picked it up, my hands trembling. It was Richard, smiling warmly, with his arms wrapped around a beautiful young woman in her late twenties. Maya. But that wasn't the shock. Standing in front of them was a little boy, no older than six, holding a toy sailboat.
The boy had Richard's eyes.
Suddenly, a shadow moved in the hallway. I turned to see the young woman from the photograph standing there, clutching the little boy to her chest. She looked terrified, holding a heavy iron fireplace poker.
"Who are you?" Maya demanded, her voice shaking. "If you're with Richard's loan sharks, I swear I'll call the police!"
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I stared at her, the pieces clicking into place. "Loan sharks?"
"He said his ex-wife's debts were catching up to him," Maya cried, pulling the boy closer. "He said she died two years ago and left him with millions in mafia debt. Who are you?"
