Chapter 3 - $186,400
The baby was okay.
I had bruising, pain and strict instructions to return immediately if anything changed.
“Okay” had never sounded so precious.
I went home with my sister, Natalie.
Ethan wasn't invited.
The next morning I opened the company records.
I expected theft.
What I found was stranger.
The payments had been made to legitimate subcontractors.
Roofing.
Electrical.
Concrete.
Cabinetry.
But several invoices didn't correspond to Bennett Custom Homes projects.
They belonged to residential addresses.
I searched the first one.
Margaret's house.
The second belonged to Ethan's younger brother, Lucas.
The third was a lake property I'd never seen.
Company money had been paying for private renovations.
I called Ethan.
“Come to Natalie's.”
He arrived forty minutes later.
I placed the invoices on the table.
“Explain.”
His face changed when he saw the lake address.
“Mom was supposed to reimburse everything.”
“Everything?”
“She needed repairs.”
“One hundred eighty-six thousand dollars of repairs?”
“It's complicated.”
“No. Accounting is actually wonderfully uncomplicated. Money leaves. Somebody authorizes it.”
I pushed the invoices toward him.
“Did you authorize these?”
He hesitated.
“Yes.”
My marriage shifted beneath me.
“Why?”
“Because she needed help.”
“You hid almost two hundred thousand dollars from me.”
“I was going to put it back.”
“With what?”
He looked toward the window.
That was when I noticed something I'd missed.
One vendor had been paid $47,800 for work at the lake property.
Ethan had approved it personally.
But the property owner wasn't Margaret.
It was Bennett Family Holdings LLC.
I had never heard of it.
And according to the state filing attached to the closing paperwork I later found, that company had two managers.
May you like
Margaret Bennett.
And my husband.
