Chapter 4 - BENNETT EQUINE
Michael owned sixty percent.
Vanessa forty.
During divorce discovery, Michael’s accountant found irregular expenses.
Not enormous at first.
Vendor payments.
Cash withdrawals.
Boarding reimbursements.
Equipment purchases.
Approximately $93,000 questioned over two years.
Vanessa insisted they were legitimate business expenses.
Some were.
Some remained unexplained.
Michael wanted a full audit before settlement.
Vanessa wanted the business sold quickly.
Why?
Because an audit risked exposing another arrangement.
One involving their parents.
Specifically Daniel and Michael’s late father, Edward Bennett.
Edward died six years earlier.
He had created a separate land trust holding the twenty-eight acres beneath the equestrian facility.
Michael believed the operating company leased the land.
Vanessa claimed the business owned an option to buy it.
Nobody had seen a signed option.
Then one appeared during divorce discovery.
Dated four years earlier.
Signed by Edward.
Problem:
Edward had been dead two years when the document was supposedly signed.
The signature was obviously impossible if the date was accurate.
Vanessa claimed clerical dating error.
Maybe.
Then the notary record was examined.
The notary was a former business administrator named Karen Holt.
She said she never notarized the document.
Now potential forgery entered the case.
Michael had planned to give that material to his attorney the morning after our wedding.
Vanessa knew.
The argument in the garage was not simply:
Give me custody.
May you like
It was:
What did you discover about the land?
