Chapter 44
Fiona
“Did you find anything?” Isla asks as I pick at my cuticles.
“No, and I’m about to go crazy,” I tell her, looking through another set of papers I brought from home.
“Did the lawyer say what kind of paperwork you needed to find? Does it have to be physically official, or could it be something that Jack wrote down?” My well–meaning friend asks, but the question just sends me into a deeper spiral of uncertainty.
I’ve been searching for two days, since I submitted my mother’s real will, for some piece of information to prove Jack is trying to steal my inheritance. He’s been smart and sneaky, making sure I can’t find anything, though.
Slumping back in my office chair, I rub at my temples.
“It has to be official. Something that I didn’t sign or paperwork that takes everything without my permission. I don’t remember…” I trail off, trying to ignore the headache worming it’s way into my head.
Isla hums then asks, “Was there anything Jack got into that needed a signature recently? With everything he’s done recently, he could’ve used your signature to forge a document.”
“There were some papers a while back that Jack had me sign, but they weren’t anything dealing with my inheritance,” I tell her, trying to remember what he’d done. “It was something about a cruise line and buying stocks or something. I can’t exactly remember.”
“What the heck does he need stocks in a cruise company for?”
Shaking my head, I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose.
“I’m not sure, but you know Jack. Recently he’s into a lot of things to try to make some money. It looks like I’ve got somewhere to start my search,” I tell her. If I can figure out how Jack is planning to use the money before we divorce, I can maybe stop him.
“You’re welcome, girl. If you need anymore help, just let me know,” Isla says. “I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”
Hanging up, I set my phone aside and glance through Ethan’s office windows. He’s been in meetings all day, so I haven’t been able to talk to him today. I wanted to ask him if there was a way to look into Jack’s work computer to see if he’s hiding anything on it. Ethan might have a way to do a surprise company search since employees aren’t supposed to do personal activities on the computers provided by the company.
In Jack’s contract it said he could be subject to random office investigation if the company desires to make sure he wasn’t doing anything inappropriate. This could count, and if it does, I want to ask Ethan.
It makes me feel a bit strange asking him for something like this, but he said he wanted me to come to him if I needed help.
I just hope he can help with this.
In the meantime, until Ethan gets back, I log into mine and Jack’s joint bank account. I vaguely remember Jack talking about a cruise line about a year ago, so I pull up the bank records for the last year. If it’s not here, I’ll dig further back.
There are at least four years of documentation in my drive folders, and if I must go through every single one, I will.
Once I get the bank statements pulled up, I search through the numbers. Most of the transactions present are from Jack’s card, since I tried to keep my spending as low as possible. However, in the records from seven months ago, I find several transactions that I didn’t notice before.
The money transfers are from my inheritance account to a company called Golden Harmony Cruise Line. There are six
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Transactions, one for each month after that, all coming the sum of one million dollars
Confused, I pull up the most recent monthly statement to find another transaction, this one pending for seventy–five thousand dollars. Again, the money comes hom my inheritan ccount from the Golden Harmony Cruise Line.
“What are you up to?” I mumble, wondering how I hadn’t noticed the transfer of money. I don’t look at my inheritance account often, since I refrain from using it, but somehow Jack had gotten into it and began slowly funneling money out of in
“Waiting for my lunch date to show up.”
I startle, jumping at the voice behind me.
Spinning around, I come face to face with Ethan who is leaning down like he’d been peeking over my shoulder,
“You scared me!”
With a smirk, Ethan stands and leans against my desk. He wasn’t supposed to be out of his meeting yet. I glance at the clock.
“Oh, I mumble.
“Yeah, you were supposed to meet me for lunch fifteen minutes ago,” Ethan says as my checks grow warm with embarrassment. I was so intent on searching that I’d forgotten about lunch and lost almost two hours of time,
Crap.
“I’m sorry, Ethan. I was looking into Jack’s finances, and I found several large transactions between Jack and a cruise line. Have you ever heard of Golden Harmony Cruise Line?”
Ethan knows a lot about business, so maybe he’ll have heard of the company.
“No, sorry. It doesn’t ring a bell. Maybe it’s a new company or one that doesn’t make enough to be on my radar,” he says, turning and looking at my computer screen. “Search them up.”
Nodding, I pull up the internet and type in the cruise line’s name. It takes a second, but several links pop up. I choose the
and open the
page.
first one
“Golden Harmony Cruise Line, the next best all–inclusive adult only cruise line with amazing shows, spas, casinos, and clubs,” Ethan reads, his nose scrunching up in disgust. “There’s an announcement.”
He points at the screen on the left and I zoom in.
“The first ship, the Golden Paradise, will begin development and building on February 12, 2024. More information will be available in months to come,” I read aloud. February was about seven months ago, the same time Jack began sending money to the cruise line.
Quickly, I open the connected drive that holds important documents stored on my personal computer.
Not only does it hold my important paperwork, but it also holds Jack’s as well. It was the only way I could keep up with everything he sent me, and at the time, he didn’t care about how I organized them as long as I was the perfect little wife.
Now, it may come back to bite him in the butt.
So, I begin the long, boring journey of opening file after file to search for anything suspicious. I also keep my eyes peeled for the cruise line documents.
It takes a minute, but I remember a document he had me sign, saying he was purchasing a ship. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but I also didn’t think he’d be so awful to steal from me.
A few clicks later, I have two documents pulled up on the screen. One is a transfer of ownership document for what I
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thought was the Golden Paradise Ship, and the other is an identical document stating Jack could have access to my inheritance account.
“I–I didn’t sign this. This isn’t my signature,” I whisper, my shaking hand reaching for the computer mouse.
My name is on the document, but it’s not my real signature. \
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“Come to my office now,” I hear Ethan say from behind me, making me look over my shoulder just in time to see him hanging his phone up.
“Who was-”
“Mr. Adair is on his way, and I have Ryan looking into the cruise line to see if it’s legit,” he says.
Nodding, I turn back to the screen.
“I remember signing the transfer document, but it wasn’t for my entire inheritance. It was for a small amount to help Jack purchase a stock for the company. I…”
My breaths come out hard and heavy, and my head swirls with the knowledge that Jack tricked me into signing over my inheritance. He probably thought I’d never look into it and that he could take it before I noticed.
Was the Golden Harmony Cruise Line even a real company?
“Don’t worry, Fiona. We’ll handle this,” Ethan says softly, squeezing my shoulders. I relax a bit, but it’s hard. With everything I learn about Jack, I realize I truly never knew him.
“Mr. Montgomery.”
We both turn to find Mr. Adair standing a few feet from my desk.
“Mrs. Aldridge,” he greets, nodding to me. I wave silently, still a bit shaky from my discovery.
We’ve found false documents where Mr. Aldridge forged Fiona’s signature that we’d like to submit as evidence to prove Mr. Aldridge’s illegal occupation of Fiona’s inheritance,” Ethan announces for me. I pull the files into a separate folder and hit the print button.
The printer sparks to life like a beast waking from a deep winter sleep.
Mr. Adair’s eyebrows shoot up as he sets his briefcase on the edge of my desk.
“I’ll do my best to use this information to get control of your inheritance back,” Mr. Adair states confidently.
Nodding, I gather the papers and pass them to the man I’ve put my lifeline around. If he can’t get this to work, I’m not sure what will happen.
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