Chapter 6 - Freezing the Assets
By Wednesday afternoon, Daniel and Patricia were staying in a cheap, two-star roadside motel near LAX—the only place Daniel could book using the two hundred dollars in cash he had tucked inside his gym bag.
Every single bank account had been frozen.
Under the emergency court order granted to Marcus Vance, all domestic accounts tied to Daniel Whitmore, Patricia Whitmore, and their associated LLCs were locked pending the federal forensic audit. The four point two million dollars they had transferred to the Cayman Islands hadn't disappeared into tropical paradise either; Marcus had filed an emergency Mareva injunction through British territorial courts, freezing the offshore account before Daniel could wire a single cent to an uncooperative jurisdiction.
In their cramped, moldy motel room, the drama exploded.
“You idiot!” Patricia’s screams could be heard through the thin motel walls, attracting the attention of truck drivers in the parking lot. “You told me this money was untouchable! You told me that stupid girl was completely oblivious! I gave up my pension because you promised I’d be living in luxury for the rest of my life!”
“Shut up, Mom!” Daniel yelled back, gripping his hair in both hands as he paced the stained linoleum floor. “Just shut the hell up! Do you think I wanted this? Do you think I knew her grandmother was a secret multi-millionaire? She lived in a bungalow in Pasadena! She drove an old Buick!”
“She outsmarted you, you foolish boy!” Patricia cried, throwing a plastic motel cup against the television. “And now the FBI is going to come knocking on this door! They’re going to put me in prison because my name is on those fake vendor companies!”
Before Daniel could reply, his prepaid burner phone buzzed against the nightstand.
He lunged for it, hoping against hope it was Kevin Sterling with news of a settlement.
It wasn't Kevin. It was Vanessa.
“Daniel?” Vanessa sobbed into the phone, her voice hysterical. “Where are you? The police just showed up at my apartment! They seized the Porsche! They took my laptops, my designer bags, everything you bought me with the company card! They’re saying I’m an unindicted co-conspirator to wire fraud! You have to fix this! Send me money for a lawyer!”
Daniel felt a cold knot tighten in his gut. “Vanessa, I don't have any money. They froze my personal accounts. Everything is gone.”
“What do you mean it’s gone?” Vanessa’s voice turned from terrified to venomous in a split second. “You told me you were worth thirty million dollars! You told me Claire was a penniless parasite! You dragged me into this mess! You made me sign those invoices!”
“You begged for that Cartier bracelet!” Daniel screamed into the phone. “You demanded the car! You were happy to take the money when we were sleeping in five-star hotels in Cabo!”
“Don't you dare blame this on me, Daniel! I’m going to the District Attorney right now. I’m going to tell them you forced me to sign those papers or you’d fire me! I’m taking a plea deal, Daniel. Don’t you ever call this number again!”
The line went dead.
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Daniel dropped the phone onto the bed. His hands were shaking uncontrollably.
He walked over to the cracked window, staring out at the highway traffic. In less than twenty-four hours, he had gone from a celebrated CEO living in a twelve-million-dollar oceanfront estate to a disgraced felon sharing a sixty-dollar-a-night motel room with his hysterical mother, facing federal prison time, completely abandoned by the mistress he had traded his marriage for.
