Chapter 13 - The Deadline
No one died in the fire.
That was the first thing Ryan said.
The second thing was worse.
Someone had been inside.
A night security contractor.
He escaped after smelling smoke.
He had seen a vehicle leaving the property.
Grant’s truck.
The investigator never told Ryan that directly.
Grant told him.
Two days after the fire, Grant arrived at Ryan’s office and admitted he had gone to the warehouse that night.
He claimed he only wanted to remove documents.
He insisted the fire started accidentally.
Ryan did not believe him.
Neither did I.
The insurance claim became potentially criminal.
And because my forged signature was attached to several property documents, I had nearly been dragged into it.
Ryan knew.
He still said nothing.
I ended the call.
Detective Keller received the information through Ryan’s attorney shortly afterward.
Grant’s situation deteriorated quickly.
Investigators reopened the fire case with new evidence.
The insurance company froze the claim permanently.
Lenders accelerated their debts.
Ryan’s property company was collapsing.
Then came the deadline.
One lender held a $900,000 note due January third.
If unpaid, they planned to begin aggressive collection proceedings against every pledged asset.
Including assets fraudulently represented as mine.
Samantha assured me they could fight it.
But fighting takes time.
Time costs money.
And false documents create damage even when they are eventually defeated.
We had forty-eight hours to establish a clear record that I had never authorized any of Ryan’s transactions.
I returned to Blackridge headquarters the following morning.
Six months pregnant.
Burn bandaged.
Wrists bruised.
I walked into a conference room with our general counsel, forensic security team, financial auditors, and outside investigators.
For eight hours, we reconstructed my digital history.
Travel records proved I was out of state during several authorizations.
Corporate badge logs proved I was in meetings during others.
My phone location supported additional dates.
Email metadata contradicted Ryan’s paperwork.
By evening, we had evidence.
By midnight, we had more.
Then Ethan found the breakthrough.
Ryan had used an old password manager.
The system automatically logged device fingerprints.
Every fraudulent authorization came from one device.
Ryan’s personal laptop.
Not mine.
I should have felt relief.
Instead, Ethan looked disturbed.
“What?”
He turned his screen.
“There’s another user.”
“What user?”
“Someone else accessed the same stolen credentials.”
“Grant?”
“No.”
“Brooke?”
“No.”
The login came from Diane’s tablet.
I stared at him.
Diane.
The woman who had cried on the phone.
The woman who said Grant terrified her.
The woman who claimed she only watched.
She had accessed my financial information eleven times.
The first login occurred two years ago.
Months before Ryan created the property company.
Which meant Diane had been involved before the warehouse.
Before the debt.
May you like
Before Grant’s latest scheme.
And perhaps before Ryan understood how far this family planned to go.
