Chapter 7: The Secondary Account
Dererick had pulled up a document on his laptop — not from our parents' records, which he didn't have access to yet, but from a public registry search he'd run on the name Carol, combined with the name of the investment group Dad had mentioned.
He turned the screen toward me.
It was a business registration.
A financial management company, registered four years ago in a state neither of our parents had ever lived in.
The registered agent was listed as C.
Hargrove.
The address was a mail forwarding service.
"C.
Hargrove," I said.
"Carol Hargrove," Lauren said.
"Dad confirmed it.
I asked him while you were in the kitchen."
"This company," Dererick said, "has been the recipient of at least fourteen transfers from your parents' accounts over the past three years.
I found the routing number on a document your father had in his desk — he gave it to me." He paused.
"He went to get it himself."
I looked toward the living room.
The small chair by the door was empty.
"He's upstairs," Lauren said.
"He said he needed to get something.
He came back down with a folder."
"A whole folder," Dererick said.
He patted a manila envelope on the table beside the laptop.
"Three years of correspondence with Carol Hargrove.
Wire transfer confirmations.
A contract — and I use that word loosely — for financial management services.
And three letters from their lender about the mortgage."
"What do the letters say?"
"The first one is a standard late payment notice.
The second is a formal warning.
The third—" He paused again.
The kind of pause Dererick used when he was choosing his words with professional care.
"The third is a notice of foreclosure proceedings.
Dated six weeks ago."
The word landed like something heavy dropped from a height.
"Six weeks ago," I said.
"The house is in foreclosure," Lauren said.
Her voice was entirely steady.
It was the steadiness of someone who had run out of reactions and was now simply processing facts.
"The mortgage you've been paying—"
"Was going to Carol's account.
At least partially.
For at least the last several months." Dererick leaned back.
"Your parents are behind on the actual lender payments.
The money Jenna was sending was being intercepted — some to the mortgage, some to Hargrove's company, with the split shifting over time as Hargrove took more."
"Does she have signing authority?" I asked.
"On the secondary account, yes.
She set it up as a management account.
Funds would flow in from your parents, and from that account she would distribute — ostensibly to the lender, to other expenses, with her fee taken first.
But in the past six months, the distributions to the lender have been — incomplete."
"She's been taking more and paying the lender less," Lauren said.
"And the lender has been going after Mom and Dad directly." I sat down.
"Who don't have enough left to cover it because she's been bleeding the account."
"Yes."
The rain against the windows was constant now.
I could hear it in the walls of the house — their house, the house I'd been paying for, the house that was apparently six weeks into being taken away from them while they sat at this table and let Lauren call me useless.
"Can it be stopped?" Lauren asked.
"The foreclosure."
"Foreclosure proceedings can be paused if the arrears are paid and the lender agrees to a reinstatement.
It's not simple, but it's possible within a certain window." Dererick looked at the envelope.
"The window in this case is approximately thirty days."
"And Carol?" I asked.
"If the transfers to her company constitute fraud — and given what's in this folder, I believe they do — there are several avenues.
The question is how quickly we move and whether your parents are willing to cooperate fully with documenting the arrangement."
"Are they?" I asked.
"Your father is." He paused.
"I haven't spoken to your mother yet."
We were all quiet for a moment.
Aunt Patricia appeared in the doorway.
She had her coat over her arm.
She looked at the laptop, the folder, the three of us around the table.
Something in her expression had changed from the beginning of the evening — the gleam of an entertained spectator was entirely gone.
She looked older than she had over the turkey.
"Tyler is asleep," she said quietly.
"He found a book on the shelf in the guest room.
He was fine." She paused.
"Is there anything I can do?"
It was the first genuine offer she had made all evening.
Lauren looked at her for a long moment.
"Yes," she said.
"Go be with Mom.
She's in the kitchen."
Patricia nodded and went.
I looked at the folder.
At the registration document on the screen.
At the third letter from the lender that Dererick had set face-down because the specific numbers on it were worse than the word foreclosure alone.
"I want to call her," I said.
"Carol?" Dererick asked.
"Yes."
"Jenna—"
"Not to threaten her.
Not tonight." I picked up my own phone.
"I want to hear her voice when she doesn't know who she's talking to."
Dererick and Lauren exchanged a look.
"What are you going to say?" Lauren asked.
"I'm going to say I'm a potential investor," I said, "and I heard about her services through a mutual contact."
Another look between them.
"Give me ten minutes," I said.
Lauren reached out and pressed the record function on her own phone.
She slid it across the table to me without a word.
I dialed.
It rang three times before she picked up.
"Carol Hargrove," she said.
The same warm, practiced voice from the speaker earlier.
Already smoothed back into its professional shape, as if the call with Lauren had been a minor inconvenience rather than an exposure.
"Hi," I said.
"I hope I'm not calling too late.
My name is Dana.
I got your number from a colleague — Robert Marsh?
He said you help people manage difficult financial situations."
A beat.
"Of course," she said.
"Robert is a wonderful client.
How can I help you, Dana?"
My hand tightened slightly around the phone.
She didn't know the dinner had happened.
She didn't know the folder was open on the table in front of me.
She was sitting somewhere warm and comfortable, running her smooth voice over the name of my father like he was a reference.
"I'm dealing with something similar to what I understand he went through," I said.
"A complicated refinancing situation.
I'd love to know more about how your management service works."
"Absolutely," she said.
"Why don't we set up a time to—"
"Actually, can you give me a quick overview tonight?
I'm under some time pressure."
"Of course." She shifted into a rhythm — clearly rehearsed, clearly well-worn.
The pitch of someone who had made this particular speech many times.
She described a service that sounded, on the surface, like legitimate financial management.
Coordinating between accounts, managing lender relationships, restructuring payment schedules.
"And the fee structure?" I asked.
"It varies based on complexity.
Typically a monthly management fee drawn directly from the managed account."
"And how do you ensure the lender payments go out in full?"
A very small pause.
"The managed account is structured to prioritize lender obligations."
"Is it?" I said.
Silence.
"Because I've been looking at some documents," I said.
"And it seems like in at least one case, the lender wasn't being paid in full.
While the management fee kept arriving on time."
The warmth left her voice completely.
"I think you should tell me who you actually are."
"My name is Jenna," I said.
"Robert Marsh is my father.
And you just told me, on a recorded line, exactly how your arrangement works."
She ended the call.
Lauren reached across and stopped the recording.
We sat in the silence that followed.
Outside, the rain had not let up.
Inside, somewhere above us, Tyler slept with a book, and Aunt Patricia sat with my mother in the kitchen, and my father was upstairs with his folder, and the house around all of us was thirty days from being taken.
May you like
"Send the recording to your firm email," I told Dererick.
He was already doing it.
