Chapter 3 - BECK’S NAME WAS THERE, BUT HIS SIGNATURE WASN’T
They returned home after midnight.
Avia was waiting in the family room.
Wren slept upstairs.
Beck walked in holding the folder.
His mother stood.
“How is she?”
“Fine.”
Avia exhaled.
“I told you Talia was overreacting.”
Beck stared at her.
“Leave.”
Avia blinked.
“This is my family too.”
“I said leave.”
Talia had never heard him speak to his mother that way.
Avia collected her purse.
Before walking out, she looked at Talia.
“This will get uglier because you couldn’t keep one promise.”
Beck stepped between them.
“What promise?”
Avia smiled without warmth.
“Ask your wife.”
Then she left.
Beck spent the next hour reading.
The agreement named Beck and Talia as borrowers under a revolving family-credit facility.
Talia had signed.
Beck’s typed name appeared everywhere.
But no page contained his signature.
Instead, one section referred to:
Prior authorization maintained by Mercer Family Holdings.
Beck frowned.
“I never authorized this.”
Talia sat across from him.
“Could your mother have signing authority?”
“Not over me personally.”
“Are you sure?”
He looked irritated.
Then stopped.
That question was fair.
After his father died, Beck had signed dozens of documents.
Corporate authorizations.
Trustee acknowledgments.
Banking permissions.
Temporary powers for Avia to deal with estate administration.
He had barely read some of them.
Now his own carelessness frightened him.
The next morning Beck called his business controller.
“Did Mercer Architectural receive a family bridge loan seventeen months ago?”
“No.”
“Any capital infusion around then?”
The controller searched.
“Nothing remotely close to two hundred eighty-six thousand.”
Beck gripped the phone.
“What about personal guarantees?”
“You haven’t personally guaranteed company debt since we refinanced four years ago.”
After the call, he stared at Talia.
“The story she told you was false.”
Talia looked sick.
Beck hated that part of himself wanted to ask why she had not checked.
Then he remembered every family dinner where he had told her:
Mom handles that.
Ask Mom.
Mom knows where those records are.
He had spent twelve years outsourcing financial authority to Avia because she was competent.
Talia had simply believed the system Beck himself had created.
He contacted attorney Rebecca Walsh, who had handled some of his father’s estate matters.
She asked for the entire document.
Thirty minutes later she called back.
“This isn’t a bank loan.”
“What is it?”
“Internal family lending.”
“Meaning?”
“A Mercer family trust advanced funds. According to this document, you and Talia became responsible for repayment.”
“But I received nothing.”
“That’s the first thing we need to establish.”
Rebecca requested statements.
Beck then called the accountant for Mercer Family Holdings.
The response was cautious.
“The transaction was authorized by the managing trustee.”
“Who?”
A pause.
“Your mother.”
Beck closed his eyes.
“Where did the money go?”
“I’d rather provide the records through counsel.”
That answer was enough to make his stomach tighten.
Before hanging up, the accountant said one more thing.
“Beck… I always assumed you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“The loan wasn’t made to your architecture firm.”
Beck stood.
“Then who got the money?”
The accountant paused.
“Technically?”
May you like
“Yes.”
“Your mother did.”
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