Chapter 6 - The Woman in My Clothes
Diane had lent Paige my handbag.
She swore she didn’t understand why.
Paige told her she needed it for photographs for a Mother’s Day gift.
Diane knew that explanation sounded ridiculous now.
At the time, she had wanted to believe her daughter.
Again.
There was always that word.
Believe.
People imagine betrayal survives because liars are brilliant.
Often it survives because decent people keep supplying innocent explanations.
The silver-haired woman in the photograph was identified two days later.
Her name was Laurel Greene.
She was an actress Paige had hired through a promotional staffing agency.
Laurel had been told she was participating in a “financial literacy training video.”
She had no idea she was impersonating a real person.
When Nora showed her my photograph, Laurel went pale.
“She gave me your clothes.”
My handbag.
A cream blouse.
A silver wig.
Even perfume.
My perfume.
Paige had once asked what fragrance I wore because she wanted to buy it for Diane.
Laurel remembered Eric instructing her to sign several practice forms.
She never saw the final notarized document.
That gave us a witness.
More importantly, it gave investigators one.
By then Northstar’s attorneys had contacted law enforcement regarding the corporate transactions.
I filed a separate identity-theft report.
Grant filed for divorce.
He did it quietly.
No dramatic confrontation.
No revenge speech.
He simply reached the point where evidence mattered more than explanations.
Paige returned to Santa Fe after learning accounts had been frozen.
She arrived at Grant’s house expecting to get inside.
The locks had been changed.
Grant met her on the porch.
I wasn’t there.
He told me about it later.
She screamed.
Then cried.
Then apologized.
Then blamed me.
Then blamed Diane.
Then blamed Eric.
Then claimed Grant had emotionally neglected her.
Grant listened.
Finally he asked one question.
“Why did you slap my mother?”
Paige stopped.
Of all the crimes and lies, that was what he asked.
“Because she shouldn’t have been there.”
“You sent the text.”
Paige stared at him.
“We saw the security footage.”
Silence.
“Why?”
She finally admitted it.
She wanted Grant to see me “intruding.”
She believed if she provoked me, I would create a scene.
Then she could use the incident as another example of my supposedly deteriorating judgment.
Instead, Paige lost control.
The slap wasn’t planned.
The water wasn’t planned.
My refusal to retaliate wasn’t planned either.
And Valerie’s account statement certainly wasn’t planned.
One small act of professional responsibility had shattered eleven months of deception.
But the investigation wasn’t finished.
Northstar’s forensic review expanded.
$46,380 became $71,000.
Then $103,000.
Fake vendors.
Inflated invoices.
Personal expenses.
Payments to Eric.
And then Celeste found something that made her call me at 6:15 one morning.
“Marian, you need to come in.”
I drove straight there.
She placed a file in front of me.
“What is it?”
“Life insurance.”
My heart stopped.
Russell had carried a substantial policy when he died.
It had paid into a family trust.
But this wasn’t Russell’s policy.
It was mine.
A $2 million policy.
Opened eight months earlier.
The beneficiary was Grant.
I had never purchased it.
Grant had never seen it.
The application contained my forged signature.
And the person who had submitted the premium payments through a shell company was Eric Lane.
Grant stared at the paperwork.
For the first time since the investigation began, I saw genuine fear in my son’s face.
“Why would Paige take out life insurance on Mom?”
Nobody answered.
Then Nora turned the final page.
The beneficiary designation had recently been changed.
Grant’s name had been removed.
The new beneficiary was a trust.
Trustee:
Paige Whitlock.
May you like
And suddenly the story was no longer only about money someone planned to take from me while I was alive.
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