Chapter 10 - MY BROTHER-IN-LAW MADE ONE EXPENSIVE MISTAKE
The moment Dad admitted giving Vance my Social Security number, the situation stopped being about one bank account.
Rachel told me to freeze everything.
Credit.
Investment accounts.
Insurance records.
Tax access.
Anything Vance could touch.
We pulled my credit reports.
Three inquiries I didn’t recognize.
One business credit application.
One home-equity inquiry.
And a rejected personal loan application for $80,000.
All in my name.
The home-equity attempt was the most alarming.
The lender had rejected it because the applicant failed an identity-verification step.
Apparently Vance had tried to borrow against my house.
The house he was already living in.
The house he apparently believed he could eventually control.
Rachel sent everything to Detective Bell.
Then Chloe called.
“Vance came to the hotel.”
“Are you safe?”
“Yes.”
“What did he want?”
“He wants me to sign something.”
“What?”
“A statement saying you agreed to help us financially before you deployed.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“He offered me money.”
I paused.
“How much?”
“Fifty thousand.”
That was interesting.
“From where?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
“Did you record the conversation?”
A long silence.
Then:
“Yes.”
For the first time in days, I smiled.
My little sister was learning.
Chloe sent it to Rachel.
In the recording, Vance sounded calm.
Reasonable.
Almost loving.
“Baby, this is getting out of control.”
Chloe:
“Lauren says she never approved the money.”
Vance:
“She did verbally.”
“Then why do you need me to say it?”
“Because memories get messy.”
“Whose memory?”
“Everybody’s.”
Then Chloe:
“Did you forge her signature?”
A pause.
Vance laughed.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Did Melissa?”
“She notarized paperwork.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Then came his mistake.
“I handled the signature because Lauren wasn’t available.”
Silence.
Chloe:
“What does ‘handled’ mean?”
Vance:
“You know what it means.”
Those six words were not a confession in the dramatic movie sense.
But they were devastating in context.
Especially combined with the emails.
He continued.
“Nobody was supposed to lose anything.”
Chloe:
“Lauren lost forty-five thousand dollars.”
“Temporarily.”
“And Dad?”
Silence.
“How much did you take from Dad?”
Another silence.
Then Vance said:
“Your father knew the risks.”
That told us everything.
By the following morning, investigators were looking more closely at Crescent Ridge.
It wasn’t an investment firm.
It was a shell.
Money came in.
Money moved out.
Some went to personal expenses.
Luxury vehicle payments.
Hotels.
Restaurants.
Credit cards.
And gambling.
Dad’s $286,000 hadn’t financed some brilliant project.
It had financed Vance’s lifestyle and attempts to cover earlier losses.
My $45,000 had partly been used to keep the scheme alive.
But Vance still had one card to play.
He disappeared.
Not across the country.
Not internationally.
He simply stopped answering calls and abandoned his normal locations.
Chloe woke to find one of their joint accounts emptied.
Twenty-three thousand dollars gone.
Then Mom discovered jewelry missing.
Dad found the title to his classic truck had been removed from his filing cabinet.
Vance was liquidating what he could reach.
That afternoon, Detective Bell called me.
“Do not attempt to contact him.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“If he contacts you, let us know.”
“Okay.”
Then he asked, “Do you own a storage unit on Palmer Road?”
“No.”
“Has anyone ever asked you to rent one?”
“No.”
Bell was quiet.
“What?”
“A storage facility has an account under your name.”
My stomach dropped.
“What’s inside?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“How was it paid?”
“Your bank account.”
Of course.
The warrant process took time.
Meanwhile, I stayed with Elena rather than sleep at the house.
Rachel wanted distance.
I wanted sleep.
Neither happened.
At 2:13 a.m., my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
I answered.
Silence.
Then Vance spoke.
“You really had to destroy everything.”
I sat up.
Elena woke immediately.
I put the call on speaker and began recording.
“I didn’t destroy anything.”
Vance laughed.
“You think Chloe will forgive you?”
“For what?”
“For breaking up her marriage.”
“You did that.”
“She was happy before you came back.”
“No. She was uninformed.”
“You always hated me.”
“I barely thought about you.”
That seemed to anger him more.
“You think you’re better than us because you wear a uniform.”
“No.”
“Your father gave me the money willingly.”
“Then why use mine?”
Silence.
“Vance?”
“You don’t need forty-five thousand.”
I almost smiled.
There it was again.
The family math.
You have.
We want.
Therefore it belongs to us.
“That wasn’t your decision.”
“You’ll recover.”
“Maybe.”
“You always do.”
I looked at Elena.
She was already texting Rachel.
Then Vance said something strange.
“You should tell the police to leave the storage unit alone.”
My pulse changed.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No.”
“If they open it, your father goes down too.”
That was bait.
I stayed quiet.
“You hear me?”
“Yes.”
“He signed things.”
“What things?”
Vance laughed.
“Ask Robert.”
Then he disconnected.
The next morning, investigators opened the storage unit.
Inside were boxes of business records.
Three laptops.
A printer.
Blank financial forms.
Copies of identification belonging to multiple people.
Not just me.
Dad.
Mom.
Two former employees.
Several strangers.
This wasn’t one desperate family scheme.
Vance had apparently been using personal relationships and small businesses to move money for years.
Then Detective Bell found the item that made the entire investigation change direction.
A folder labeled L. MERCER.
Inside were photocopies of my passport.
My tax returns.
My signature samples.
My deed.
And a typed document titled:
PROPERTY TRANSFER AGREEMENT.
It had never been filed.
But at the bottom was a signature.
Mine.
Fake again.
And according to that document, I had supposedly agreed to transfer my entire house to Chloe and Vance for one dollar.
The date?
Three weeks in the future.
May you like
Vance wasn’t finished stealing from me.
He had been preparing to take the house next.
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