Chapter 5 - THE MISTRESS WHO KNEW WHERE THE MONEY WENT
Rita refused to meet at the house.
She refused Daniel’s office too.
Instead, she chose a coffee shop across from a busy hotel in Copley Square.
“Public,” she said over the phone. “I want people around.”
That told me she was afraid of Victor.
It did not make me trust her.
Daniel insisted on coming.
Elena insisted on coming.
I insisted Elena wait nearby because four people surrounding Victor’s mistress might look less like a legal conversation and more like an intervention.
At eleven the next morning, Rita walked into the coffee shop wearing sunglasses despite the rain.
Without the red coat, she looked smaller than I expected.
Human.
I hated that.
It would have been easier if she looked cruel.
She sat across from me.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Finally she removed her sunglasses.
Her eyes were swollen.
“You look better than I thought you would.”
I stared at her.
She flushed.
“That came out wrong.”
“Most things about this situation have.”
Daniel sat beside me.
“Do you have the document?”
Rita reached into her handbag.
“I have a copy.”
“Where is the original?”
“Victor has it.”
She slid a folded paper across the table.
Daniel opened it.
I watched his face.
Not the document.
His face.
When a lawyer who had practiced for thirty-two years stopped breathing for a second, you paid attention.
“What is it?” I asked.
He turned it toward me.
CERTIFICATION OF BENEFICIAL INTEREST AND OWNER AUTHORIZATION.
The document stated that I, Sarah Elaine Mercer-Hale, acknowledged the transfer of my property into V&R Property Holdings and approved its use as collateral.
My signature appeared at the bottom.
Notarized by Laura Phelps.
Date: the morning of surgery.
Time: 10:42 a.m.
Daniel looked at Rita.
“You witnessed this?”
“I witnessed Victor telling Laura what time to write.”
“Where?”
“Hale Strategic.”
“When?”
“The afternoon before surgery.”
Daniel’s expression hardened.
“Start at the beginning.”
Rita’s hands wrapped around her coffee cup.
She did not drink.
“I met Victor nineteen months ago.”
Seventeen months since the sailboat picture.
The math was close enough.
“He hired my firm for a rebranding project. We started seeing each other a few months later.”
“You knew he was married.”
“Yes.”
No excuses.
No claim that Victor wore no ring.
No lie about being separated.
That almost made me angrier.
“Did you know I was giving him a kidney?”
“Eventually.”
“Eventually?”
“He told me you volunteered because you felt guilty.”
I stared.
“Guilty for what?”
Rita looked uncomfortable.
“He said your marriage had been over for years. He said you were the one who wanted a divorce but you felt responsible for his illness because you had encouraged him not to pursue treatment early enough.”
I laughed in disbelief.
Victor’s kidney disease had been monitored by specialists for nearly a decade.
I had been the one arranging appointments when he refused to slow down.
“I drove him to half those appointments.”
Rita swallowed.
“I know now.”
“No. You know what he tells you now that he’s been caught.”
“That’s fair.”
Daniel intervened.
“What did Victor tell you about the house?”
“That it was his family’s investment property that he had put in Sarah’s name for tax reasons.”
I almost stood.
Pain reminded me not to.
“My parents bought that house.”
Rita nodded.
“I found that out two days ago.”
“He promised it to you.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She looked at me directly.
“Because he said we would live there.”
It hurt differently hearing it from her.
Not more.
Just differently.
Victor had planned his new life inside rooms filled with my parents’ memories.
He intended to move Rita into my mother’s bedroom closet.
Serve her wine from glasses my father bought.
Perhaps sleep beside her in the bed I had shared with him.
Daniel tapped the document.
“When did you learn about the company?”
“Five weeks ago. Victor said it was temporary. He needed my name on it because Hale Strategic had debt.”
“How much debt?”
“I thought around five hundred thousand.”
Daniel glanced at me.
We both knew the handwritten note said nine hundred.
“Why did you agree?”
“He said the house transfer was legal.”
“And this document?”
Rita rubbed her thumb over the coffee lid.
“The day before surgery, I went to his office. Laura was there.”
“Laura Phelps?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Victor had paperwork spread across the conference table. Laura kept saying she couldn’t notarize something if Sarah wasn’t physically present.”
My pulse thudded.
“And Victor?”
“He told her it was a technicality.”
“What exact words?”
Rita closed her eyes briefly.
“He said, ‘My wife already approved everything. She’ll be unconscious tomorrow and I need the time stamp to match the closing package.’”
Daniel became completely still.
“Did Laura agree?”
“Eventually.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did money change hands?”
“I didn’t see any.”
“Did Victor threaten her?”
Rita hesitated.
“He reminded her that her son’s health insurance came through the company.”
That landed differently.
Not bribery.
Leverage.
Victor had always known where people were vulnerable.
Daniel asked, “Did you record the conversation?”
“No.”
My hope disappeared.
“But I have texts.”
She unlocked her phone.
Several messages from Victor appeared.
Laura is getting cold feet.
Tell her nobody audits notary timing.
Once the Boston money clears, everything is fixed.
And then one from Rita:
Sarah is literally going into surgery for you. Are you sure this can’t wait?
Victor replied:
That’s exactly why it can’t.
I stared until the letters blurred.
Rita whispered, “That message is why I called you.”
I looked up.
“Not the affair?”
“No.”
“Not moving into my house?”
She flinched.
“No.”
“What suddenly developed your conscience?”
“Victor lied to me too.”
There it was.
Not morality.
Self-preservation.
“What did he lie about?”
Rita’s mouth tightened.
“He told me the loan was for Hale Strategic.”
“It wasn’t?”
“Not all of it.”
She opened another screen.
A bank transfer confirmation.
“Two hundred thousand went to his company.”
“We know.”
“One hundred fifty went toward a condo.”
“We know that too.”
Rita’s eyes filled.
“The condo wasn’t for me.”
That surprised me.
Daniel leaned forward.
“Who was it for?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked humiliated now.
“Victor told me he was putting a deposit on a place in Beacon Hill for us. Yesterday, I called the broker.”
“And?”
“The buyer on the purchase agreement isn’t Victor.”
“Who is it?”
“A woman named Natalie Rhodes.”
I had never heard the name.
Rita laughed bitterly.
“He had another woman.”
Of course.
I should have felt vindicated.
I felt tired.
Victor had not betrayed me for one great love.
He had betrayed everybody because betrayal was simply how he moved through the world.
“Who is Natalie?” I asked.
“Vice president at one of his clients. Thirty-two. Married.”
Daniel wrote the name down.
“When did he meet her?”
“I don’t know.”
Rita wiped beneath one eye angrily.
“I confronted Victor.”
“What did he say?”
“That the property purchase was business-related.”
“And you believed him?”
“I believed him for about twenty minutes.”
She reached into her bag again.
This time she removed a small black flash drive.
“What’s that?” Daniel asked.
“Victor’s backup folder.”
My spine straightened.
“How did you get it?”
“He kept it in the glove compartment.”
“You stole it?”
“I copied it.”
Daniel did not touch the drive.
“Do not alter anything.”
“I didn’t.”
“What’s on it?”
“Financial spreadsheets. Loan documents. Photos of identification. Scans.”
She looked at me.
“And a folder with Sarah’s name.”
My stomach tightened.
“What kind of folder?”
“I opened two files.”
She slid the drive toward Daniel.
“One was the fake power of attorney.”
“And the other?”
Rita looked at me.
“A draft separation agreement.”
My breath caught.
“That isn’t surprising.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“The date is.”
“What date?”
“Four months ago.”
Victor had been planning divorce before I even began the final donor evaluation.
Rita continued.
“But that isn’t the worst part.”
“Then what is?”
“There’s a handwritten note scanned into the same folder. It lists what Victor expected to keep after the divorce.”
She recited from memory.
“Hale Strategic. The investment account. Your joint savings. Your car.”
Then she stopped.
“And?”
“Boston property.”
Of course.
Daniel asked, “Anything else?”
Rita’s face changed.
Fear.
“I didn’t understand the last line.”
“What did it say?”
She looked directly at me.
“‘If S resists, incapacity route.’”
The coffee shop seemed to become silent.
I heard nothing except my heartbeat.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Daniel did not answer.
Rita did.
“I think Victor had a second plan if the forged transfer failed.”
May you like
She swallowed.
“I think he was preparing to say you weren’t mentally competent to manage your own property.”
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