Chapter 6 - Derek's Awakening
At 8:00 PM on Wednesday evening, an unknown number flashed across my screen. It wasn't a troll. It had a private local area code.
I answered. “Madeline Vance.”
“Madeline... it’s Derek.”
The voice was ragged, exhausted, and laced with profound embarrassment. Derek Sterling had always been a quiet, somewhat passive man—handsome, well-educated, hailing from a family with immense old-money prestige, but perpetually overshadowed by his domineering mother and his glamorous fiancée.
“Derek,” I said evenly. “If this is about Saturday, my attorney’s number is on the cease-and-desist letter your mother was handed.”
“No... please, Madeline, don't hang up,” Derek pleaded. “I’m not calling to defend what happened at the gates. I’m calling from a hotel lobby downtown. I haven't been back to our apartment since yesterday afternoon.”
I paused, leaning against the counter. “Where is Samantha?”
“She’s at her mother’s house, doing live streams and filming updates for social media,” Derek said, his voice heavy with disillusionment. “Madeline... my mother showed me the property records you gave her. She showed me the deed. She told me about the power of attorney.”
“Did she tell you about the three-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar line of credit Samantha tried to take out using my estate as collateral?”
A long, suffocating silence stretched over the line. When Derek finally spoke, his voice broke completely.
“What line of credit?”
“Samantha forged my corporate resolutions, Derek. She opened an offshore shell LLC and attempted to borrow three hundred and fifty grand against my house. The bank flagged it for federal fraud yesterday morning. She told your parents she was contributing half a million dollars to your joint investment portfolio, didn't she?”
“She told my father she was liquidating her family trust distribution,” Derek whispered, sounding like a man whose world had just collapsed beneath his feet. “My father... my father matched her deposit with five hundred thousand dollars of Sterling family trust capital. He wired it into her LLC account on Monday.”
The room went dead cold.
“Derek,” I said slowly, “you need to contact your family’s corporate attorneys this second. Samantha has your father’s five hundred thousand dollars sitting in an account she created with forged documents. If that account gets frozen by federal regulators—which Julian Vance is initiating tomorrow morning—that money will be tied up in litigation for years.”
“My God,” Derek breathed. “She lied about everything. Stonehaven, her inheritance, her family’s background... she even told me you were hospitalized for psychiatric evaluation two years ago to explain why you didn't attend our engagement party!”
“I was in Tokyo closing a forty-million-dollar software acquisition,” I replied dryly.
“Madeline, I am so sorry,” Derek choked out. “I was completely blind. She manipulated me, she manipulated my mother... I was so desperate to believe she was the woman she pretended to be. My mother wants to hold an emergency family meeting tomorrow night at the Sterling Club. She wants Samantha and Eleanor there to sign a formal release of claims. But Samantha is refusing to come unless my mother agrees to pay for an alternate venue at the Ritz-Carlton.”
A sharp, brilliant idea formed in my mind.
“Tell your mother to hold the meeting,” I said.
“What? Why?”
“Tell your mother to invite Samantha, Eleanor, and Uncle Arthur under the pretense of finalizing an alternate venue agreement. Tell them the Sterlings will cover the entire cost of the Ritz-Carlton wedding if they simply sign the release paperwork in person.”
“Madeline, my mother will never agree to pay for that—”
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“She won't have to,” I interrupted. “Because I will be there. Along with Julian Vance, the county fraud investigator, and the complete paper trail. It’s time to put an end to this farce, Derek. Once and for all.”
***
