Chapter 4 - The Ghost in the Court Records
The records flooded my screen in black-and-white clarity.
Delilah Cole, age twenty-six. Formerly married to Darren Cole. Divorced fourteen months ago in Cook County, Illinois.
Attached to the divorce decree were three pending civil judgments for grand larceny, fraudulent conveyance, and unpaid contractor liens totaling over two hundred and forty thousand dollars. Darren Cole wasn't an accomplice—he was her ex-husband, and according to the court filings, he was currently suing her for embezzling sixty thousand dollars from their joint marital business.
She hadn't fled Chicago to find love in our small Ohio town. She had fled Chicago to escape process servers, find another hardworking, naive man with pristine credit and real estate equity, and bleed him dry to pay off her debts.
And Mark was walking straight into the slaughterhouse in less than forty-eight hours.
My phone vibrated in my lap. It was a text from Grandma Evelyn:
*“Jenna, honey, please don’t be mad at Mark. He brought over a bouquet of grocery store carnations just now and apologized for Lila’s sharp tongue. He says Lila was just overwhelmed. Let’s just let it go. Peace in the family is worth four hundred dollars.”*
My eyes welled with tears of pure rage. Mark had bought Grandma cheap, clearance carnations to patch over a theft, while Lila sat in his living room planning to steal his home.
I called Grandma immediately.
“Jenna?” she answered, her voice small.
“Grandma, listen to me very carefully,” I said, my voice steady and deadly serious. “Do not throw away the grocery receipts. Do not throw away the box the ingredients came in. Do you have the security camera footage from your porch?”
Uncle Leo had installed a Ring doorbell camera on Grandma’s porch last Christmas.
“Why, yes, I think so. Leo set it up on my tablet. But Jenna, what are you doing?”
“Lila is a con artist, Grandma. She’s using an alias. She has criminal judgments against her in Illinois, and she’s planning to refinance Mark’s house on Monday to pay off her ex-husband.”
There was a long, horrifying silence on the line. I could hear Grandma’s breathing turn shallow.
“Oh, my God,” Grandma whispered. “Mark… Mark gave her access to his bank account last month.”
“I know. And I’m going to stop her. But I need you to do something for me, Grandma. Can you be strong for forty-eight hours?”
“What do you need me to do, baby?”
“Act like everything is fine. When Mark calls, tell him you accept the carnations. Tell him you love him and that you’ll be sitting in the front row at the church on Saturday.”
“Are we going to call the police?” Grandma asked, her voice shaking.
“The police won't stop a wedding in time, Grandma. Lila’s civil judgments are out of state, and what she’s doing to Mark right now is technically legal because he’s signing the papers willingly. If I walk into the church waving court documents, Mark will just accuse me of forging them to ruin his happiness. Lila has him brainwashed.”
“Then how do we save him?”
I looked out the windshield at the quiet suburban street. “We don't attack her where she's strong. We attack her where she's proud. Lila wants a public spectacle? I’m going to give her one she’ll never forget.”
I hung up, opened a blank document on my laptop, and began compiling the dossier.
Every receipt. Every court document. Every bank transfer.
Then, I opened my contacts and scrolled down to a name I hadn't called in three years: Marcus Vance—the prominent Chicago real estate developer Lila claimed was her estranged multi-millionaire uncle.
If Delilah Cole was using his family name to commit fraud, I had a feeling Mr. Vance would be very interested to know who was representing his bloodline in Ohio.
May you like
I pressed call.
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