Chapter 3 - The Audit Begins
By five-thirty the next morning, Westbrook Heights was shrouded in thick autumn fog.
The house was dead silent except for the low hum of the Sub-Zero refrigerator. Brandon was asleep in our primary bedroom upstairs, snoring off four glasses of bourbon, while Diane occupied the guest suite at the end of the hall.
I didn't make eggs benedict.
Instead, I sat at my desk in my home office with the door locked, my dual-monitor setup glowing in the predawn dark. On the left screen was the county lien registry for our house. On the right was the public property record for 412 East Maple Street, Dayton, Ohio—the six-unit multi-family building owned by *Oak & Stone Holdings LLC*.
I zoomed in on the signature page of the $310,000 HELOC deed of trust.
There it was. *Claire Morgan*.
The signature was good. It was remarkably good. It had the slight upward slant I used on my business contracts and the exaggerated loop on the 'C'. Whoever had forged it hadn't just scribbled my name; they had traced it from an authentic document.
Then I checked the notary seal.
*Evelyn Reed. Commission Expires: March 14, 2027. State of Ohio.*
In Ohio, a notary public who knowingly notarizes a fraudulent document involving real property commits a felony of the third degree. Furthermore, under Ohio Revised Code § 147.14, a notary and their surety bond are civilly liable for all damages caused by official misconduct.
Aunt Evelyn had a $100,000 professional liability bond, and she owned a mortgage-free $450,000 colonial house in Upper Arlington.
*She put her entire life on the line for Brandon and Diane,* I thought. *Or they lied to her, too.*
I picked up my encrypted tablet and brought up the bank account information Marcus had scraped from the title company’s wire transfer logs.
When the $310,000 HELOC funds were disbursed on January 16th, they were wired to an account at Buckeye Commerce Bank under the name *Oak & Stone Holdings LLC*. The designated account signatories were Diane Morgan and Brandon Morgan.
Over the next six months, the account had seen regular activity. But there was something peculiar about the transaction history Marcus had uncovered through his commercial database access.
Every month on the 1st, six individual rent deposits totaling $8,400 entered the account from the tenants in Dayton.
Every month on the 5th, a payment of $3,800 was wired to a private commercial lender called *Apex Bridge Capital*—the secondary mortgage on the Dayton property.
That left a monthly net cash flow of $4,600.
Where was that money going?
It wasn't staying in the LLC. On the 10th of every month, exactly $4,500 was transferred out of Oak & Stone Holdings into a personal checking account at Chase Bank.
Account ending in #7109.
I opened my personal files and pulled up our joint tax return from two years ago.
Account #7109 wasn't Brandon's.
It wasn't Diane's.
It belonged to a woman named Chloe Mercer.
I stared at the name on the screen. My pulse hammered against my temples.
Chloe Mercer.
I knew that name. I had heard Brandon mention it three or four times over the past year during casual phone conversations with his colleagues. Chloe was the junior territory marketing manager hired by Ohio Medical Logistics last autumn. She was twenty-six years old.
Brandon had described her to me at a company holiday party as "a nice kid who needs a lot of mentoring."
*A lot of mentoring.*
I leaned back in my leather ergonomic chair, staring at the ceiling as the pieces began to interlock with horrifying precision.
This wasn't just an overbearing mother exploiting her son, or a greedy family trying to build a real estate empire at the expense of an in-law.
Brandon wasn't giving his $12,000 paycheck to Diane to secure her retirement. He was using Diane as a front to wash money through an LLC, pull hundreds of thousands of dollars of equity out of my house, and funnel cash to a twenty-six-year-old marketing manager.
And Diane? Diane was willing to be his legal shield because she hated me, because she wanted control over Brandon, and because she believed Brandon would eventually abandon me and bring her into the center of his new, shiny life.
I checked the time. 6:45 AM.
Footsteps creaked on the hardwood floor upstairs. Brandon was waking up.
I closed the financial tabs, switched the screen to an innocuous cash-flow projection for one of my retail clients, and unlocked the office door.
I walked into the kitchen, turned on the espresso machine, and set out three clean coffee mugs.
A moment later, Brandon walked in, wearing his gray suit pants and a crisp white dress shirt, unbuttoned at the collar. He looked smug, completely convinced that last night's empty plate incident had simply been the death rattle of my resistance.
"Coffee's ready," I said pleasantly, pouring a dark roast into a mug and sliding it toward him.
He smirked, picking up the mug and taking a sip. "See? That wasn't so hard, was it? You just needed a little reality check, Claire. Men run the household. Women manage the comforts. Once you accept your lane, everything runs smoother."
"You're so wise, Brandon," I said, my voice dripping with synthetic admiration. "By the way, did you need me to drop off your dry cleaning today? I noticed your navy Hugo Boss suit was in the hamper."
Brandon waved a dismissive hand. "No, don't worry about it. I have to drive down to the Dayton territory today anyway. Visiting some regional clinics. I'll drop it off near the office."
*Dayton.*
He was going to Dayton. Where his six-unit rental property was located. And where, if I had to guess, Chloe Mercer was waiting.
"Be careful on I-71," I said, smiling warmly. "The fog is really heavy."
"Yeah, yeah," he mumbled, checking his phone. He typed a quick text, a tiny smile pulling at the corner of his lips, before sliding the device back into his pocket. "Mom's going to sleep in until ten. Make sure she has fresh fruit and that green tea she likes when she gets up."
"I'll take excellent care of her," I promised.
He grabbed his leather briefcase and his car keys. "Good girl. I'll be back late tonight. Don't wait up."
He walked out the kitchen door into the three-car garage. A few seconds later, the low rumble of his BMW’s twin-turbo engine reverberated through the floorboards before fading down the driveway.
I stood by the window, watching his taillights disappear into the mist.
May you like
"Good girl," I whispered to myself, the words turning to ice on my lips. "Enjoy your drive to Dayton, Brandon. Because while you're visiting your investments, I'm visiting your aunt."
***
