Chapter 3 - The Sister-in-Law's Gambit
The collapse of a liar’s foundation is rarely a quiet event; it sends shockwaves through everyone who built their comfort on top of those lies.
By Friday evening, the reality of the situation had swept through the rest of the Mercer family tree.
I was sitting in a quiet, dimly lit booth at a high-end French bistro downtown, enjoying a glass of Pinot Noir with my corporate attorney and longtime friend, Marcus Vance. We were celebrating the successful closing of a major forensic audit for a regional hospital group.
"You really told her you’d report her to the CRA?" Marcus chuckled, taking a sip of his wine. "Simone, you are ruthless. I love it."
"I didn't say I would report her, Marcus," I smiled, cutting a piece of my steak. "I said I could. There's a massive legal difference between a threat and an educational statement regarding tax law."
"Either way," Marcus smiled, "Grant’s lawyer called my office at two o'clock today. He was practically stuttering. He asked if we’d be willing to enter a binding non-disclosure agreement regarding the corporate audit schedules in exchange for Grant waiving all future appeal rights on the Kanata property division."
"Did you agree?"
"I told him we'd think about it," Marcus winked. "Provided Grant pays our five thousand dollar legal fee for answering his frivolous motion."
Before I could respond, my phone chimed on the table.
It was an incoming call from a number I hadn't seen in nearly a year: Evelyn Mercer—Grant’s younger sister, the "proper wife" whom Patricia had spent nine years holding up as the gold standard of womanhood.
I showed the screen to Marcus. He raised an eyebrow. "Are you going to answer?"
I swiped the green icon and set the phone on speaker, keeping my voice calm and pleasant. "Hello, Evelyn."
"Simone," Evelyn’s voice came through the speaker, tight, rushed, and noticeably lacking her usual sweet, condescending tone. "I... I need to talk to you. Privately."
"We don't have anything private to discuss, Evelyn," I said smoothly. "If this is about your mother or Grant, you can speak through Marcus."
A heavy pause sounded over the line. In the background, I could hear the faint sound of a child crying and the sharp, angry voice of her husband, Mark, shouting about a bank transfer.
"Simone, please," Evelyn practically whimpered, her polished persona completely dissolving. "Grant told Mom that you canceled her card because you were angry about the divorce. But Mom just called me crying... she said Mark and I have to cover her six-thousand-dollar Scottsdale resort bill because the hotel is threatening to report her card as fraudulent!"
"That sounds like a personal family matter, Evelyn," I replied, taking a slow sip of my wine.
"We don't have six thousand dollars, Simone!" Evelyn cried out, her voice rising in pitch. "Mark’s firm had a terrible third quarter! My kids are in private school! If Mom’s resort charges hit Mark’s primary account, his partners will see it! They think we’re completely financially stable!"
I sat back against the leather booth, looking across at Marcus, who was quietly shaking his head in utter disbelief.
"Evelyn," I said softly. "For nine years, your mother sat at my dinner table every single Thanksgiving and Christmas, telling everyone how wonderfully Mark provided for you. She told me—to my face—that a woman who worked sixteen hours a day running a business was a failure as a wife."
"She... she was just being traditional, Simone! You know how Mom is!"
"No, Evelyn," I corrected her firmly. "She wasn't being traditional. She was being a parasite. And you were more than happy to sit there and watch her humiliate me while you enjoyed the luxury holiday gifts I paid for, the cottage weekend deposits I covered, and the private school tuition assistance Grant quietly funneled to you from my business account."
Evelyn went dead silent on the phone.
"Wait..." she stammered, her voice shaking. "What... what tuition assistance?"
"Did Grant tell you that the twenty thousand dollars he gave Mark last August for your son’s hockey academy came from his 'consulting income'?" I asked, a cold, satisfied smile touching my lips. "It came from my company's secondary dividend account, Evelyn. Grant forged my digital authorization signature to transfer it to Mark's account."
A sharp, audible gasp came from Evelyn’s end of the line.
"Grant told us... he told us it was his share of a joint investment payout!" Evelyn sobbed.
"Grant didn't have a joint investment payout, Evelyn," I said. "He had a wife who was too busy running a company to check her secondary transfer logs every month. But I check them now. And if Mark doesn't return that twenty thousand dollars to my corporate trust account by the end of next month, my attorney will be adding Mark's name to the civil recovery lawsuit."
"Simone, no! Mark will lose his partnership if his firm finds out about a civil fraud suit!"
"Then I suggest you sell your designer handbags, Evelyn," I said softly. "You know... like a proper wife putting her family first."
I ended the call.
May you like
Marcus let out a low whistle, lifting his wine glass toward me in a silent toast. "Remind me never to get on your bad side, Simone."
"I don't have a bad side, Marcus," I smiled, touching my glass to his. "I just have an accounting ledger. And every single column is finally balancing to zero."
