Chapter 3 - THE PRICE OF HIS VERSION
Two days later, Wyatt shoved another child during lunch.
The school counselor called me to Jones Middle School, where he sat in the office with his blazer folded across his lap. He refused to look at me.
“What happened?” I asked.
The counselor answered carefully. “A student said his mother was trying to steal his father’s company.”
Wyatt’s face reddened. “Everybody’s parents read the article.”
The local business paper had published a photograph of Barrett leaving court beneath the headline: CEO’S ESTRANGED WIFE CHALLENGES OWNERSHIP.
I was not described as a founder.
I was described as a homemaker seeking marital assets.
Paige had spent years managing Barrett’s image. She knew which reporters would repeat a clean story quickly. The article appeared before the courthouse had even closed.
At home, Emmett asked whether we would have to move again. The furnished apartment I rented near Grandview Heights was half the size of our house, and the boys shared a bedroom.
“Dad said the company pays for everything,” he said. “He said if you hurt it, people lose their jobs.”
Barrett had turned the boys into an audience for his defense.
That evening, Marisol sent me documents produced by the company.
One item did not fit.
Eighteen months earlier, Barrett had secured a large credit line to purchase a struggling regional carrier. In the bank application, he certified that he controlled seventy percent of O’Connell Logistics.
The number matched his thirty-percent ownership plus my forty-percent voting proxy.
But the proxy had expired eight years earlier.
There were also monthly payments to Delancy Strategic Communications, a company Paige had formed shortly before she began publicly dating Barrett. Those payments had tripled after our separation.
I called Marian’s former accountant, Harold Vance, who still prepared the family trust’s taxes.
“Did Barrett ever ask you for a renewed proxy?” I asked.
“He sent me one,” Harold said.
“Did I sign it?”
“No. I told him it required your signature and Marian’s trustee approval.”
“When was that?”
“Three weeks before the acquisition loan closed.”
I remembered that month. Barrett had brought papers home every night, slipping signature tabs between school forms, medical releases, and summer-camp applications.
I had signed several without reading them closely.
But apparently not the one he needed most.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
“I assumed you knew what he was attempting. You were still a director.”
“I haven’t attended a board meeting in ten years.”
Harold became quiet.
“Loretta, the minutes say you have.”
By midnight, Marisol and I had requested the original board packets, electronic access logs, and meeting notices.
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The following morning, I made a decision Barrett had spent years assuming I would never make.
I walked into O’Connell Logistics headquarters for the first time since my sons were toddlers.
