Chapter 9 - The Unexpected Visitor
Before I could reply to the text, my office door swung open again.
My executive assistant stood in the threshold, looking slightly flustered. "Excuse me, Ms. Sara. You have a visitor in the lobby. He wouldn't take no for an answer, and he claims it’s an urgent matter regarding the Vance estate litigation."
"Did Thaddius send him?" I asked, frowning.
"No," the assistant said, stepping aside. "It's Marcus Vance. Your husband's cousin."
I exchanged a brief glance with David. "Send him in."
Marcus walked into the office wearing a heavy wool overcoat, shaking the melting snow from his shoulders. He looked remarkably calm for a man whose family name was currently being dragged through civil court and federal investigations.
"Sara," Marcus said, offering a polite, cautious nod. "Thank you for seeing me on such short notice."
"Make it quick, Marcus," I said, leaning back in my leather chair. "If you're here to plead on Thaddius's behalf, you're wasting your breath."
"I'm not here to plead for Thaddius," Marcus replied, pulling out a slim leather folder from his coat pocket and placing it on the desk, right next to the forensic audit. "In fact, I'm here to help you bury him."
David leaned forward, narrowing his eyes. "What kind of help?"
"Thaddius wasn't acting alone in those fraudulent real estate loans," Marcus said smoothly, his eyes cold and calculated. "He had a silent partner within the upper management of the municipal zoning board—someone who helped him backdate the property titles so the banks wouldn't catch the discrepancy."
I stared at him, my heart ticking up a beat. "Who?"
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"My father," Marcus said quietly. "Your uncle-in-law, Richard Vance. And if you subpoena the county registry records from three years ago, you'll find a paper trail linking both of them straight to a shell corporation offshore."
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