Chapter 3 - THE MAN FROM MY OWN COMPANY
For thirty-one minutes, I sat across from Scottsdale Title & Trust and tried to understand how Richard Vale could be standing inside the same building as Kyle.
There were explanations that did not involve betrayal.
I listed them because I needed to stay rational.
Maybe Richard knew Marcy professionally.
Maybe he was there for another transaction.
Maybe the timing was a coincidence.
Then Susan stepped outside and answered a call.
She was smiling.
A moment later, Richard came out behind her.
Susan touched his arm with the familiarity of someone who had met him before.
He leaned closer while she spoke.
They both looked toward the parking lot.
I lowered myself behind the steering wheel.
That was enough to destroy coincidence.
My phone buzzed.
Lena was calling.
“Chloe, get out of there.”
“I need to see what they sign.”
“You cannot see it from your car.”
“I can see who comes out.”
“And they can see you.”
I hesitated.
“Richard knows my car.”
“Exactly.”
I started the engine.
Before I pulled away, I saw Kyle emerge through the glass doors.
He was holding a blue folder.
Richard shook his hand.
Not a casual handshake.
A congratulatory one.
Then Marcy hugged Susan.
Heather raised both hands and laughed.
I drove away before rage made me stupid.
Lena directed me to a coffee shop twenty minutes north where she was waiting at a back table.
I had not seen her in eight months.
She looked almost exactly as she had in college, except for shorter hair and the tired eyes of someone who had spent too many years studying what people were willing to do for money.
She did not hug me immediately.
She pointed at the chair.
“Sit.”
I sat.
“Now breathe.”
“I am breathing.”
“Barely.”
I pushed my phone across the table.
“Richard Vale.”
“I know who he is.”
“He sponsored my promotion.”
“I know.”
“He has access to the corridor data.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
Lena folded her hands.
“I need you angry, not reckless.”
I stared at her.
“What did they sign?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“But the transaction did not fund.”
My shoulders dropped slightly.
“Why?”
“A verification flag.”
“Whose?”
“Your father’s.”
I blinked.
“Dad did something?”
“No.”
“The title company’s system noticed that the remote identity verification attached to the file was completed from an Arizona IP address while Norman’s stated residence is Nebraska.”
I remembered Kyle taking my father to a notary.
“Dad was here last week.”
“Then that alone may be explainable.”
“So it won’t stop them.”
“Probably not.”
“How long?”
“Could be hours.”
Lena opened her laptop.
“I need to show you something else.”
She pulled up the registration for Prairie Vista Holdings LLC.
The company had been formed nine months earlier.
Its organizer was a business attorney in Delaware.
Its mailing address belonged to a corporate services office.
There was no public owner listed.
“That proves nothing,” I said.
“Correct.”
“Then why show me?”
“Because Prairie Vista has acquired six properties around your father’s farm.”
“Through the other LLCs?”
“No.”
“Directly.”
I stared at the map again.
“Then who owns the other LLCs?”
Lena turned the screen.
“Two trace back to pension investment funds.”
“One traces to a private development group.”
“And Prairie Vista?”
“I’m still digging.”
I rubbed my temples.
“What would Richard want with Dad’s land?”
“Your company’s expansion corridor may be worth hundreds of millions over the next decade.”
“My company doesn’t own the corridor.”
“No.”
“But companies that control the land around logistics hubs can make a fortune.”
A memory surfaced.
Six months earlier, Richard had asked me casual questions during a conference dinner.
Where had I grown up?
Did my father still farm?
Was the property near Omaha?
At the time, I had thought he was making conversation.
Now every question sounded like reconnaissance.
“He knew,” I whispered.
“Maybe.”
“He asked me about the farm.”
Lena’s eyes sharpened.
“When?”
I told her.
“Do you have messages?”
“No.”
“Calendar entry?”
“Company retreat in Denver.”
“Good.”
“That only proves we were in the same place.”
“It helps build chronology.”
Chronology.
Evidence.
Patterns.
Lena did not think like a betrayed friend.
She thought like an investigator.
I needed that.
My phone rang.
Kyle.
I looked at Lena.
She nodded.
“Answer.”
I picked up.
“Hey.”
“Where are you?”
The question was immediate.
Not hello.
Not I miss you.
Where are you?
“Getting coffee.”
“Where?”
“Why?”
“Just asking.”
I looked through the window at the shopping center sign.
I named a different coffee shop in the opposite direction.
Kyle was silent.
“Are you there alone?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I needed air.”
A pause.
“Did you talk to your dad?”
There it was.
“No.”
“Maybe you should.”
“Why?”
“He seemed upset.”
“You said you hadn’t talked to him.”
Kyle recovered quickly.
“Mom told me.”
“Right.”
He lowered his voice.
“Chloe, I’ve been thinking.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
He laughed.
The old me would have loved hearing that laugh.
The woman sitting across from Lena heard only camouflage.
“Since you’re home early, maybe we should get away for a few days.”
“Get away?”
“Sedona.”
“Now?”
“Tomorrow.”
I met Lena’s eyes.
She shook her head once.
“That sounds nice,” I said.
“Great.”
“But I need to check work.”
“You just finished a month away.”
“And I came back early.”
His tone changed.
“You said the contract was done.”
“It is.”
“Then what is there to check?”
I smiled though he could not see me.
“You know how my job is.”
Another pause.
“Sure.”
“I’ll see you at home.”
“Love you.”
The words nearly caught in my throat.
“Love you too.”
I ended the call.
Lena did not comment on the lie.
She simply said, “He wants you out of town.”
“Yes.”
“Probably until the transaction funds.”
“Yes.”
“Are you willing to go?”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“Think about it.”
“If he believes you are driving to Sedona tomorrow, he may stop watching you for a few hours.”
I understood.
“You want me to make him think I left.”
“I want options.”
A notification appeared on Lena’s laptop.
She read it.
Her expression changed.
“What?” I asked.
She turned the screen.
An archived corporate record showed a prior mailing address associated with Prairie Vista Holdings.
It was not a law office.
It was a private mailbox in Phoenix.
The authorized pickup name was listed in an older commercial database.
SUSAN MERCER.
I stared at the name.
Mercer was my mother-in-law’s maiden name.
Lena looked at me.
“Your mother-in-law may not just know about this.”
“She may own the company trying to buy your father’s farm.
I sat back so quickly the chair legs scraped the tile.
Lena lowered her voice.
“Do not make the leap that the mailbox proves current ownership.”
“I know.”
“But it proves a connection.”
“Yes.”
“What was Susan’s financial situation before she moved in with you?”
I almost answered automatically.
Bad.
Then I realized I only knew what Susan had told me.
“She said her savings were nearly gone.”
“Did you ever see statements?”
“No.”
“Tax returns?”
“No.”
“Estate records after her husband died?”
“No.”
Lena raised one eyebrow.
“So we do not know she was poor.”
I hated that sentence because it exposed another assumption I had treated as fact.
Susan had moved into our home after claiming rising medical costs made her condo unaffordable.
I had paid six thousand dollars of dental work.
I had covered prescriptions.
I had even transferred money directly into her account twice when she said she could not meet insurance deductibles.
“What if she never needed my help?” I asked.
“That is a separate question.”
“It does not feel separate.”
“No.”
I opened my banking history and searched Susan’s name.
The total made me feel stupid in a way I knew I should resist.
Over four years, I had transferred or paid more than sixty thousand dollars for her direct benefit.
That did not include groceries, utilities, travel, or the cost of housing her.
Lena watched my face.
“Do not turn generosity into evidence against yourself.”
“I should have asked more questions.”
“Maybe.”
“But helping someone who says they are struggling is not negligence.”
I closed the banking app.
“The problem is not that I helped.”
“The problem is that they decided help meant access.”
Lena nodded.
That distinction steadied me.
We searched archived property records for Susan’s old condo.
She had indeed sold it.
But the sale had netted far more than she implied.
After paying the mortgage, she should have received approximately one hundred and eighty thousand dollars.
I had never heard about that money.
There were legitimate ways it could have disappeared.
Medical costs.
Debt.
Bad investments.
Family help.
But suddenly her dependence on me looked less simple.
I remembered one afternoon when she had complained that I "liked playing provider."
At the time I had been hurt.
Now I wondered whether she resented me precisely because I had unknowingly made her performance possible.
Before we left the coffee shop, Lena gave me one more warning.
“If Susan is financially tied to Prairie Vista, do not assume Kyle is the one in charge.”
I looked at her.
“He is my husband.”
“That is a relationship, not a hierarchy.”
The sentence stayed with me when I drove home.
All morning I had pictured Kyle as the center and Susan as the mother protecting him.
Now another possibility appeared.
May you like
Maybe Kyle had not brought his family into his plan.
Maybe his family had built a plan around him.”
