Claire placed the report in front of Natalie.
“The bank’s forensic team traced these funds to your business account,” she said.
Natalie’s face emptied of color.
“Ethan told me they were distributions from his investment account.”
“You sent him invoices,” Claire said.
“For consulting.”
“Your boutique paid him consulting fees?”
Natalie said nothing.
Claire turned to another page.
“The invoices describe services your business never received.
They were created within minutes of each transfer.”
Victoria gripped the back of a chair.
“This is ridiculous.
Families move money between one another all the time.”
“Not by forging authentication codes,” Claire said.
“And not from an account containing trust distributions that belong solely to another person.”
Ethan finally stopped pretending calm.
“You set me up,” he said to me.
I looked at my injured arm.
“I stopped you.
That is not the same thing.”
His jaw flexed.
“You always needed to control everything.
Every bill, every account, every decision.
You treated me like an employee.”
“I asked you not to steal $80,000.”
“It was for my sister.”
“It was not yours.”
He stepped toward me again.
The officer caught his wrist and pulled it behind his back.
Ethan resisted just long enough to make the second cuff necessary.
Victoria cried out his name.
The sound carried into the dining room where the roast beef remained on the table, the candles still burning around four abandoned plates.
The first officer read Ethan his rights.
He stopped struggling, but he kept his eyes on me.
“You think these people will protect you?” he said.
“When they leave, you’ll be alone in this house.”
The locksmith on the porch lifted his case.
Claire met Ethan’s stare.
“That is why the locks are being changed tonight.”
For the first time, fear appeared plainly on his face.
Not fear of the officers.
Fear of losing access.
The house had been more than a home to him.
It was the proof he displayed to friends, clients, and relatives that he had succeeded.
He hosted dinners beneath my chandelier and gave tours of rooms he had not paid for.
He told people we had chosen the property together, though I had lived there long before meeting him.
He loved the house because everyone assumed it belonged to him.
Now he was being led out of it in handcuffs.
As the officers reached the porch, Ethan twisted back toward Victoria.
“Call Mercer,” he said.
“He’ll fix this.”
Claire’s expression sharpened.
Daniel Mercer was the attorney whose name appeared on the fraudulent deed amendment.
Claire had already called him.
