Chapter 4 - THE AUDIT OF DECEIT
By sunset, the local sheriff’s deputy had come and gone, taking Mrs. Gable’s formal statement and issuing a citation for assault and battery against Lennox.
Faced with the very real prospect of spending her evening in a county jail holding cell, Lennox had finally gathered her designer bags, screaming obscenities the entire way down my walkway, and dragged Terrence with her to a cheap motel down on Route 17.
They thought it was over. They thought they could lie low, wait for the dust to settle, and eventually find another way to bleed me dry.
They didn't know Marcus Holloway.
Late that evening, sitting at my kitchen table with a fresh cup of tea and an ice pack pressed against my bruised cheek, Marcus opened his laptop and began tapping away at the keyboard.
“Bessie,” Marcus said, peering over his glasses. “Do you know how they sold that house on Maple Street so fast?”
“Terrence said they needed liquidity,” I replied, sipping my tea. “Lennox wanted cash for her lifestyle.”
“It’s more than that,” Marcus murmured, scrolling through a public records database. “The house was sold off-market to an LLC registered in Delaware. And guess who the managing director of that LLC is?”
I frowned. “Who?”
“Lennox’s brother, Marcus Vance—wait, no, Brandon Vance,” Marcus said, his eyes narrowing. “A known real estate speculator with a history of fraudulent title transfers and bankruptcy filings in three different states.”
My breath hitched. “You mean... she sold our family home to her own brother?”
“Below market value,” Marcus confirmed grimly. “Real market value for a colonial on Maple Street in this zip code is closer to eight hundred thousand. They sold it for six-twenty to a shell company owned by her family, which means they didn't just spend the money—they funneled the equity directly into her brother’s hands, leaving Terrence with a zero-dollar net worth and zero legal claim to the property.”
A cold fury settled deep in my chest.
My son hadn't just been foolish. He had been conned, manipulated, and systematically robbed by a woman he thought he loved.
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“Can we reverse the sale?” I asked quietly.
“We can do better than that,” Marcus smiled—a thin, dangerous smile that I hadn't seen since Edward passed away. “We can slap a federal freeze on the entire transaction for fraudulent conveyance, initiate a forensic audit on every dollar that left that escrow account, and drag Brandon Vance into a probate court deposition before the end of the week.”
