Chapter 4 - THE FIRST THING SHE STOPPED PAYING FOR
By nine Sunday morning, Maddie had spoken to her bank’s fraud department and emailed the title company stating that she did not authorize her funds to be treated as a gift.
She did not accuse anyone of fraud.
Not yet.
She asked that no transaction involving her money proceed without direct verification.
The title officer replied twenty minutes later.
Monday’s closing could not proceed as scheduled.
Bradley called immediately.
Maddie declined.
Barbara called next.
Maddie answered.
“This can be fixed.”
Barbara sounded exhausted rather than angry.
“Then explain it.”
“Bradley was trying to simplify the financing.”
“By removing me from ownership?”
“Only temporarily.”
“And calling ninety-two thousand dollars a gift?”
Barbara paused.
“That was how the lender needed it documented.”
Maddie sat straighter.
“You knew?”
Another pause.
“I knew the structure.”
Maddie closed her eyes.
“Did you know Bradley told me I would own forty percent?”
Barbara didn’t answer.
That was an answer.
Maddie drove home to Wheaton that afternoon while Bradley remained in Wisconsin.
She changed the password on her personal brokerage account.
Then she opened six months of household statements.
What began as caution became something colder.
Bradley’s American Express had been paid automatically from their joint checking account.
Maddie deposited roughly seventy percent of the money entering that account.
For years she had rarely examined individual charges.
Now she did.
Steakhouse dinners.
Golf.
Liquor.
Equipment rentals.
Payments labeled MERCER PROP.
There were seventeen of those.
$900.
$1,250.
$1,100.
Maddie added them.
More than $19,000.
She had assumed they were related to Bradley’s consulting work.
She searched the account name.
It belonged to Barbara.
Maddie called her bank again and ended the automatic payment from their joint checking account to Bradley’s personal credit card.
Then she opened a checking account in her own name and redirected her paycheck.
Bradley arrived home shortly after eight.
May you like
His first question was not whether she was hurt.
“What did you do to my card?”
