Chapter 6 - The Business She Buried
There were forty-three files in the folder.
Scanned signatures.
Photographs of forms.
Pages Laura recognized.
Pages she had never seen.
The technician opened a document authorizing a loan against the remaining proceeds from the sale of her studio.
Laura leaned forward.
“That isn’t mine.”
“The signature?” Nora asked.
“The loan.”
The signature looked exactly like hers.
That was the problem.
They found another file.
Then another.
Marcos had saved everything.
Not because he expected to be caught.
Because he expected to need it again.
An accountant named Daniel Price joined them that afternoon.
He wore an inexpensive watch and carried a calculator with a cracked corner.
He asked Laura simple questions.
When had she sold the studio?
Who had introduced the buyer?
Where had the money gone?
“Marcos handled the arrangements,” she said.
The words tasted worse every time she repeated them.
“He said I had enough to worry about.”
Daniel opened the sale agreement.
The buyer was Harbor Creative Holdings.
Laura remembered a pleasant man with a navy tie.
He had told her the studio’s clients would be cared for.
He had offered much less than the business was worth.
She had accepted because Marcos said a new treatment program required immediate payment.
Daniel compared the agreement with a spreadsheet from the drive.
Then he stopped.
“What?” Laura asked.
He turned the screen.
A company listed as a consulting vendor had received a large payment shortly after the sale.
Its owner was Marcos.
Laura stared at the number.
Ninety-two thousand dollars.
“That was supposed to pay for therapy.”
Daniel didn’t answer quickly.
He didn’t have to.
Further down the spreadsheet was a monthly payment to Valeria.
Under the description, Marcos had typed:
Personal support.
Laura stood so abruptly that her chair struck the wall.
Elena rose too.
“Laura.”
“I need a minute.”
In the restroom, she locked the door and pressed both hands against the sink.
She remembered eating crackers for dinner because the special rehabilitation meals were expensive.
Remembered canceling a dental appointment.
Remembered telling her employees that closing the studio was a temporary sacrifice.
In the mirror, she looked like someone who had been asked to identify a body.
When she returned, Daniel had another document open.
“Harbor Creative didn’t keep your studio,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“It sold the equipment, kept the client contracts, and moved the work to another company.”
“Whose company?”
He hesitated.
May you like
Then he pointed to the ownership record.
Marcos’s name was on that one too.
