Chapter 10 - Skeletons in the Penthouse
The morning sun broke over the snow-covered peaks of Aspen with blinding clarity. The blizzard had cleared during the night, leaving the valley wrapped in pristine, untouched white. While the mountain town woke up to fresh ski powder, my team and I had already spent six uninterrupted hours working inside the chalet’s private library.
Arthur Harrison sat across from me at the antique partner's desk, stacks of financial printouts, bank forensic ledgers, and court orders spread out between our laptops. Beside us, a dedicated corporate analyst from Bennett Aero was continuously updating real-time feeds from New York.
"It’s worse than we anticipated, Nora," Arthur said, taking off his reading glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose. "When Richard realized six months ago that your mother’s trust would legally transfer control to you upon your twenty-fifth birthday, he panicked. He didn't just borrow against the dividend streams—he fabricated board resolutions."
I tapped my fingers against the polished oak. "He forged voting authorizations?"
"He forged your signature, and he used an offshore notary service based out of Belize to validate a falsified amendment to your mother’s will," Arthur explained, passing a heavy blue folder across the desk. "He attempted to encumber the Manhattan penthouse—the family home on Park Avenue—by taking out a secondary private equity mortgage worth twelve million dollars. That money didn't go to business operations. It was funneled directly into an account registered under Mason's name, disguised as a venture development fund."
I opened the folder. The signature on the bottom of the deed transfer was a clumsy, digitized imitation of my own name. It was dated just four weeks after my mother’s memorial service, a time when I had been so paralyzed by grief that I could barely open my mail.
While I had been sitting in my small studio apartment in Brooklyn trying to piece my life back together, my father and his new wife had been sitting in that grand penthouse, drinking my mother’s vintage wine and forging my signature to fund their stepson’s lavish lifestyle.
"Did Mason spend it?" I asked, my voice calm despite the cold burn in my chest.
"Most of it," Arthur replied. "He purchased three luxury vehicles, leased a private jet charter membership, and lost nearly five million dollars in speculative foreign currency trading within ninety days. But the remaining four million was wired into an escrow holding account in Delaware last Friday. Richard and Patricia were planning to use that four million to pay off the mortgage arrears on the penthouse before our audit caught up with them."
Suddenly, the screen on my laptop flashed with an urgent notification. It was a live push alert from Bloomberg Financial: Bennett Capital Operations Halted Amid Federal Probe; Foreclosure Notices Filed on Flagship Manhattan Assets.
Within seconds, the private office phone rang. Thomas stepped into the library and transferred the call through the desk speaker.
"Nora?" It was Richard. His voice was ragged, completely destroyed by a night of sleepless terror. He was calling from the lobby of the budget lodge down in the valley. "Nora, please... you have to listen to me."
"I’m listening, Richard," I said, leaning back into the leather chair. "Arthur Harrison is on the line as well."
There was a choked sob on the other end. "They posted the eviction notice on the doors of the Park Avenue building two hours ago. My building superintendent called me. Patricia is going insane down here. She’s threatening to throw herself into traffic, she’s screaming at the front desk clerks... Nora, that apartment was your mother’s home. Everything she owned is inside those walls. If the lenders seize it, they’ll auction off everything—her art, her piano, her personal journals. You can't let them take it!"
A bitter laugh escaped my lips. "Now you care about my mother’s memories, Richard? When you brought Patricia into that home three months after the funeral, did you care about my mother’s journals? When you let Patricia replace my mother’s portraits with modern art prints, did you care about her legacy? When you forged my name to borrow twelve million dollars against the roof over our heads, where was your concern for our family history?"
Richard went completely silent. The guilt was a heavy, suffocating weight that he could no longer deflect.
"I didn't have a choice," he whispered pathetically. "Patricia was pushing me every day. She said if I didn't prove we were wealthier than her ex-husband, she’d leave me and expose my private debts. I was drowning, Nora."
"You made your choice every single day you chose greed over integrity," I answered firmly. "The bank will not auction my mother’s possessions. Arthur has already filed an emergency motion to freeze the auction based on fraudulent title execution. The penthouse will be repossessed—not by the secondary lenders, but by Bennett Aero Holdings as restitution for the funds you embezzled."
"And... and where am I supposed to go?" Richard asked, his voice cracking with the realization that he was truly cast out. "Where are we supposed to live?"
"You are a grown man, Richard. You spent thirty years boasting about your financial acumen. Figure it out."
I ended the call with a press of a button.
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Arthur looked at me, a glimmer of profound pride in his eyes. "The federal marshals will serve the formal repossession paperwork at the Park Avenue building by two this afternoon. If you want to oversee the retrieval of your mother’s personal effects, we should board the company jet back to New York immediately."
I stood up, closing the folder with a sharp, decisive snap. "Order the flight, Arthur. It’s time to take back what belongs to my mother."
