“Come on,” Miriam muttered, tapping her manicured fingernail against the wood.
At 8:58 AM, the phone rang. It was the compliance officer at the lending bank. “Ms. Miriam. We received the judge’s emergency injunction. The wire has been intercepted and frozen in escrow pending a formal fraud investigation. The funds will not be released to Mr. Sterling.”
I collapsed back into the leather chair, letting out a breath I felt I had been holding since yesterday afternoon. The bomb was defused. My house was safe.
“Thank you,” I whispered, wiping a single, cold tear of relief from my cheek.
“Don’t thank me yet,” Miriam said, her eyes narrowing at her computer screen. She was reviewing the destination routing numbers from the frozen wire. “Kate… look at this.”
I leaned over her desk.
“This Delaware LLC he set up,” Miriam pointed with her pen. “It’s linked to an international holding account. And look at the attached expense receipts he filed to justify the ‘urgent’ loan release. He purchased real estate.”
“A house for him and Maya?” I asked, feeling a dull ache in my chest.
“No,” Miriam said softly. “A beachfront condo in Belize. And two first-class, one-way tickets out of Miami for tomorrow night. One is for Benjamin Sterling.”
“And the other?”
Miriam clicked the receipt to enlarge it. “Passenger name: Chloe Vance.”
Chloe Vance. Ben’s twenty-three-year-old junior paralegal. The girl with the bright laugh who had complimented my shoes at the firm’s holiday party.
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