Chapter 8 - The Strategy Meeting
The conference room at my father's legal counsel's office smelled of polished mahogany and old paper. The attorney, a sharp-eyed woman named Henderson—no relation to Eric, thankfully—spread out the digital printouts and bank statements across the long table.
"This changes the timeline significantly," Attorney Henderson said, adjusting her glasses as she reviewed Sarah's flash drive contents. "If Eric utilized forged marital dissolution documents to contract a second marriage while actively draining joint marital assets to cover corporate restitution shortfalls, we are looking at felony grand larceny, bigamy, and federal wire fraud."
I sat in the leather armchair, my hand resting gently on my stomach. The baby remained calm, as if sensing the shift in power. For months, Eric had made me feel small, fragile, and entirely dependent on his goodwill. Sitting here, surrounded by my family and a woman who had survived his deception years before me, I felt a strange sense of reclamation.
"Where is he now?" my father asked the attorney.
"His firm suspended his credentials this morning at nine a.m.," Attorney Henderson replied, tapping a pen against her legal pad. "His mobile phone has gone straight to voicemail since noon. According to the police liaison, he hasn't returned to his apartment or his office. But he knows his accounts are frozen."
"He's going to try to liquidate whatever physical assets are left," Sarah said sharply. "He has a safety deposit box at a branch downtown that isn't tied to his primary bank. That’s where he keeps his secondary passports and cash reserves."
I looked at Sarah. "Passports?" plural?
"When we were first married, before his international real estate projects took off, he traveled for work under dual registry through an overseas family connection," Sarah explained. "He always kept a second set of identification just in case corporate investigations got too close. It’s how he operated before he settled down into his suburban facade."
The pieces clicked together with terrifying clarity. Eric wasn't just a local embezzler who panicked on a residential street; he was a professional fraudster who treated people like disposable stepping stones.
"We can't wait for the police to trace him to that safety deposit box," I said, standing up from the chair. My voice was steady, surprising even myself. "If he gets to those passports, he's gone."
Attorney Henderson looked up, startled. "Mrs. Henderson—Claire—you cannot confront him. That is a matter for law enforcement."
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"I'm not going to confront him," I said, looking at my father and Megan. "We're going to make sure he has nowhere left to run before he even gets to the bank."
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