Chapter 5 - The Notary's Confession
The Grand Ballroom looked as if an artillery shell had detonated over the centerpiece floral arrangements.
Arthur Sterling took two rapid steps back from Julian, his champagne glass resting frozen against his chest, his expression shifting from genial corporate paternalism to horrified revulsion. Around Table One, junior partners leaned away as if Julian had suddenly contracted an airborne hemorrhagic fever.
Natalie Mercer dropped her champagne glass. It shattered against the parquet floor, crystal shards and sparkling wine splashing across the hem of her eight-hundred-dollar emerald gown.
“What is the meaning of this?” Julian stammered, his voice climbing an octave, his hands fluttering helplessly toward Arthur Sterling. “Arthur, this is a mistake. This is a domestic dispute—my wife is having an emotional breakdown, she’s unstable—”
“Shut up, Julian,” Evelyn Rosen commanded, stepping forward from behind the sheriff’s deputies.
She didn't raise her voice, but she didn't have to. Evelyn possessed that rare, terrifying courtroom authority that sucked the oxygen out of an entire room. She opened a slim black leather binder and pulled out a single sheet of paper with a certified red county seal.
“My name is Evelyn Rosen, representing Nora Vance Hart,” she announced to the room, her gaze sweeping across the managing partners. “Forty-five minutes ago, Judge Michael Holbrook of the Second Judicial District issued an emergency ex parte order voiding the fraudulent deed recorded yesterday morning against the Vance family estate. Furthermore, the Denver District Attorney’s Economic Crimes Division has issued a subpoena for all records pertaining to JH Property Holdings and Meridian Consulting Ltd.”
“Meridian?” Arthur Sterling’s head snapped toward Julian, his jaw clenching like an iron vice. “Julian... did she just say Meridian?”
Julian’s face went pasty white. Sweat was already beading across his upper lip, breaking through his foundation. “Arthur, don’t listen to this—”
“Ten minutes ago,” Evelyn continued calmly, “Denise Alvarez, the mobile notary public Julian paid three hundred dollars in Cherry Creek yesterday, signed a sworn affidavit under penalty of perjury. Marcus, distribute the copies.”
Marcus, looking impeccably professional, moved down the head table, dropping laminated copies of the affidavit in front of every senior partner.
I picked up the copy in front of Julian’s plate and read the highlighted lines out loud, my voice carrying clean and steady across the room:
*“‘I, Denise Alvarez, admit that on October 14, Julian Hart presented me with a General Durable Power of Attorney bearing the pre-printed name Nora Hart. Nora Hart was never present. Julian Hart informed me his wife was bedridden with late-stage cancer and instructed me to stamp the jurat without verifying her identification. He provided me with a photograph of her driver’s license on his mobile device and paid me an additional cash gratuity of three hundred dollars to backdate the logbook entry.’”*
Gasps rippled across the surrounding tables.
A female managing partner at Table Two covered her mouth in disgust. Natalie Mercer looked as though she were about to faint; she scrambled backward, her chair screeching against the floorboards, trying desperately to create physical distance between herself and the man she had kissed at Terminal B yesterday afternoon.
“Bedridden with late-stage cancer, Julian?” I asked softly, taking a step toward him.
He shrank back. The boyish charm, the arrogant boardroom swagger, the dismissive smirk he had worn in the airport—it was all gone. Stripped down to the marrow, Julian Hart was nothing more than a terrified, petty embezzler whose con had collapsed thirty minutes before the payout.
“Nora... please,” Julian whispered, his eyes darting frantically toward the exits. “We can talk about this. We can fix this. You don’t know what you’re doing—you’re destroying my life!”
“No, Julian,” I said, my voice dropping into a low, lethal register that only he and Natalie could hear. “You destroyed your own life the second you touched my father’s house. Did you really think I wouldn't hear you at Gate B22?”
Julian’s knees visibly buckled. His eyes widened until the whites showed entirely around his dark irises.
*“Gate B22...”* he choked out.
“‘*That idiot is about to lose everything,’*” I quoted, smiling directly into his ruined face. “‘*Quick, clean, done.’* Isn't that what you told Natalie while you kissed her behind the concrete pillar? You should really watch your volume in public terminals, sweetheart. The acoustics are surprisingly clear.”
Natalie let out a strangled sob, grabbed her designer clutch, and made a desperate break for the ballroom double doors.
She didn't make it five yards.
Two corporate security guards, flanked by Crestview’s general counsel, stepped directly into her path.
“Miss Mercer,” Crestview’s counsel said, his voice flat as slate. “You’ll need to accompany us to the thirty-second floor. The compliance committee has just seized your company laptop and mobile devices. Our internal forensic accountants would like to discuss four hundred and twelve thousand dollars in unauthorized consulting disbursements to Meridian Ltd.”
Natalie turned back toward Julian, her face contorted with sudden, venomous hatred.
“You told me she was clueless!” Natalie screamed, her voice echoing off the high Victorian ceiling, stripping away every shred of corporate decorum. “You told me she was a soft, stupid house-mouse who signed whatever you put in front of her! You dragged me into this, you pathetic loser! You told me the house was already yours!”
“Natalie, shut up!” Julian bellowed, lunging toward her, but the sheriff’s deputy seized his arm, spinning him around and slamming him flat against the linen-draped table.
Glasses overturned. Silverware clattered to the floor. The deputies clicked a pair of cold, carbon-steel handcuffs around Julian’s wrists with two sharp, metallic snaps.
“Julian Hart, you are being detained pursuant to a warrant for identity theft, criminal simulation, and felony forgery,” the deputy recited, hauling Julian upright by his collar.
Julian’s tuxedo jacket was twisted around his shoulders; his blue silk tie hung crooked across his chest. He looked at Arthur Sterling, his eyes pleading, desperate, weeping openly now.
“Arthur! Call the firm’s attorneys! It’s a civil matter—it’s an asset division dispute! Arthur!”
Arthur Sterling didn't blink. He wiped a drop of spilled scotch from his cuff with a linen napkin, looked at Julian as if he were an unidentifiable stain on the carpet, and turned his back on him.
“Arthur Sterling,” Evelyn Rosen called out smoothly.
The managing director paused, turning to face Evelyn with guarded caution. “Yes, counselor?”
“My client requires immediate, supervised access to Mr. Hart’s corporate office at Crestview headquarters to recover her father’s personal estate records, which were unlawfully removed from the marital residence yesterday,” Evelyn stated. “Unless, of course, Crestview wishes to be named as a co-conspirator in the pending federal conversion claim.”
Sterling swallowed hard, his neck flushing red above his stiff collar. He looked at me—at the blue silk dress, at the cold, unyielding fire in my eyes—and bowed his head slightly.
“Mr. Hart’s security badge has already been deactivated, Mrs. Hart,” Sterling said softly. “Our head of security will escort you personally. You may take whatever belongs to you. And on behalf of Crestview Capital... you have our deepest regrets.”
“Save your regrets for his bail hearing, Mr. Sterling,” I said.
May you like
I turned and walked toward the exit, my Louboutin heels clicking rhythmically against the ballroom floor, not once looking back at the man who had called me an idiot twenty-four hours before.
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