Chapter 10 - THERESA’S DEBT
I met Theresa the next morning at a Panera near SouthPark because I refused to go back to the townhouse alone.
Claire sat three tables away.
Theresa noticed her immediately.
“You brought a lawyer.”
“I brought someone who knows when I’m being lied to.”
Theresa removed her sunglasses.
There was no makeup on her face.
I had never seen her in public that way.
She looked less powerful.
Not softer.
Just exposed.
“Start with Arthur,” I said.
She wrapped both hands around a paper coffee cup.
“Arthur and I have known each other thirty-eight years.”
“Were you sleeping with him?”
“No.”
I waited.
She looked toward the window.
“Not while my husband was alive.”
The sentence hit harder than I expected.
Mitchell’s father, Richard, had died six years earlier.
“So after?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“About two years.”
“Does Mitchell know?”
“He knows enough.”
I remembered Mitchell’s instant denial.
Not protection.
Shame.
Theresa continued.
“Arthur convinced me to invest in a private real-estate fund. Small multifamily properties. Renovations. Short-term debt. He said the returns were safer than the market.”
“How much?”
“Everything liquid I had.”
I stared at her.
“How much?”
“Three hundred and ten thousand.”
My anger paused long enough for arithmetic.
“That isn’t four hundred.”
“The fund started failing. Arthur used company money to cover obligations that should’ve been paid from investor accounts.”
I said nothing.
“He moved losses between entities,” she continued. “Mitchell discovered one of the transfers because a payment was routed through a client account he managed.”
My skin prickled.
“He didn’t create the original loss.”
“No.”
“But he altered internal coding.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To protect Arthur.”
“Why would he protect the man sleeping with his mother?”
Her mouth tightened.
“Because Arthur promised to make the investment whole.”
There it was.
Not one villain.
Three adults making selfish decisions one after another.
Arthur hiding losses.
Theresa protecting the man who lost her retirement savings.
Mitchell falsifying entries to protect both of them and preserve his career.
Then each new lie requiring a larger lie.
“Harbor Row,” I said.
“My company.”
“What company? It doesn’t do anything.”
“It was created to receive repayment from Arthur’s investment deals without drawing attention to me personally.”
“And then you used it to send money to Mitchell’s employer.”
“Yes.”
“Your own money.”
“What was left.”
I stared at her.
“So Mitchell told me you were broke because you rescued him.”
“In part.”
“But really you were both covering for Arthur.”
She looked down.
“Yes.”
I felt sick.
The entire story I had been assembling for nine chapters of my life tilted.
Mitchell had committed fraud.
He had cheated on me.
He had helped steal my identity.
None of that changed.
But the financial disaster hadn’t begun with him.
It had begun with Theresa and Arthur.
“Why the fake deed?”
She closed her eyes briefly.
“Arthur said Mitchell needed assets on paper if the company demanded restitution.”
“You gave him my house.”
“I added my son to a marital home.”
“It was my legal property.”
“You were married.”
“That is not permission.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew it then.”
She didn’t argue.
That was worse.
“And the fake driver’s license?”
Her fingers tightened around the cup.
“I had it made.”
Claire stood from the other table.
Theresa noticed.
“Sit down,” I said. “Finish.”
Theresa looked at me.
“I knew a man through one of Arthur’s property contractors. He said he could create identification good enough for remote verification.”
“You committed identity fraud.”
“I was trying to keep my son from prison.”
“No. You were trying to keep consequences away from your family by putting them on me.”
Her face hardened.
“You don’t have children.”
I stared at her.
She continued, “You don’t understand what a mother will do.”
A strange calm moved through me.
“My mother left me one hundred twenty thousand dollars because she spent thirty years saving what she could.”
Theresa looked away.
“You decided your son’s mistakes mattered more than my mother’s entire working life.”
She said nothing.
“And this morning?”
Her eyes returned to mine.
“The pot?”
A muscle moved in her cheek.
“I was angry.”
“About what?”
“You found the folder.”
“No. You walked into my room carrying the pot.”
She looked at the table.
“Were you trying to make me leave?”
Her silence answered.
I stood.
Then Theresa said, “Danielle.”
I stopped.
“There’s one thing Mitchell doesn’t know.”
I turned back.
She reached into her purse and placed a small flash drive on the table.
“Arthur has been telling Mitchell the company audit created the four-hundred-thousand-dollar number.”
“Didn’t it?”
“No.”
May you like
She pushed the drive toward me.
“I heard Arthur choose that number himself.”
