Chapter 13: Following the Money

Catherine Vane had authorized the purchase of my apology gift.

The receipt was crisp, printed on heavy stock. I ran my thumb over the text, feeling the raised ink. The date was yesterday, 11:15 AM. While I was at work. While Richard was allegedly at a construction site. While Catherine was supposedly painting in the attic or lost in a fog of medication.

It wasn't just the fact that she paid. It was the implication.

She knew.

She knew Richard and I would fight. She knew he would need a token to smooth things over. She knew my taste in jewelry—or maybe Richard just told her what to buy.

It made me feel sick. It made me feel like a doll being passed between them.

I shoved the receipt into my pocket and snapped the velvet box shut. I couldn't look at the bracelet. It wasn't a gift; it was a leash.

I needed to see the money.

I went back to my laptop. The red error message from the insurance portal was gone, replaced by the session timeout screen. I didn't log back in. Instead, I opened the accounting software for Vane Construction.

I had access here. Limited access, restricted to the operational accounts, but access nonetheless.

I started pulling the reports for the last five years. Income statements. Balance sheets. Cash flow.

I looked for the loans. The "bridge" financing that kept us afloat during the slow months. There were dozens of them. Short-term, high-interest notes that I had personally guaranteed.

Each loan corresponded to a specific project. The marina development. The downtown condos. The luxury retreat in the mountains.

I cross-referenced the dates. Every time a loan was approved, a large sum was deposited into the operating account. That was standard.

But then I looked at the withdrawals.

Within 48 hours of each loan deposit, a transfer was made. Not to contractors. Not to suppliers.

To *Consulting Fees.*

I clicked on the vendor details for "Consulting Fees."

*Vendor: C. Vane Trust.*

The money came in from the bank, backed by my signature, and went straight out to the Trust.

I pulled up the ledger for 2023.
Loan: $1.5 Million.
Transfer to Trust: $1.4 Million.

2022.
Loan: $2 Million.
Transfer to Trust: $1.9 Million.

The company wasn't making money. The company wasn't even *spending* money on construction. It was a pass-through entity. A funnel.

We were borrowing money to pay Catherine.

And I was the one on the hook for it.

I did the math in my head, tallying the outstanding principal on the loans I had guaranteed. The number made my head spin. Seven million dollars. Maybe eight.

If the company defaulted—which it would, because it had no actual revenue—the banks would come for me. They would take my savings. My retirement. My parents' house, which I had foolishly used as collateral for the first loan.

I was being drained. Systematically.

And Catherine—the invalid, the ghost, the *wife*—was the beneficiary.

I stared at the screen, the numbers blurring. Why? Why would Richard do this to me? To himself?

Unless it wasn't about the money. Unless it was about keeping the money *in the family.*

The "C. Vane Trust" wasn't just Catherine. It was the family vault. The black box where the Vane fortune actually lived.

And I was the one filling it up, one loan at a time.

I needed to know where the money went *after* it hit the Trust. But I didn't have access to the Trust accounts. Those were sealed.

Except...

I remembered the glimpse of Catherine's screen. *The Cayman Islands Bank.*

She wasn't just receiving the money. She was moving it.

I looked at the dates again. The transfers to the Trust always happened on the 15th of the month.

Today was the 14th.

Tomorrow, the next tranche of the bridge loan was due to hit the operating account. $500,000.

If I stopped that transfer, the whole system would choke.

But to stop it, I needed to prove the "Consulting Fees" were fraudulent. I needed a contract. An invoice. Something.

I searched the vendor files. There were no invoices from C. Vane Trust. Just a standing authorization form.

I opened the form. It was dated January 4, 2002.

The same date as the marriage certificate.

The signature at the bottom wasn't Richard's. It wasn't Eleanor's.

It was mine.

My signature. In my handwriting. Dated ten years before I met them.