Chapter 8: The Storage Unit on the South Side
They found it on a Thursday.
Diane called me while I was in a meeting with my business accountant, working through the process of separating my company's finances from everything Marcus had touched.
I stepped into the hallway to take it.
"Reyes just called me," Diane said.
"They executed a search warrant on the storage unit this morning."
"What was in it?"
A pause.
"Rachel.
It was a lot."
She told me what they found.
I stood in the hallway with my back against the wall and listened.
Financial records going back nine years.
Documents from Marcus's first fraud case — records he should have surrendered to the court and hadn't.
A second set of books for Garrett-Hale, showing transactions that had never appeared in the official records.
Correspondence between Marcus and Paul Garrett that predated their supposed reconnection by years.
And a folder — a single manila folder — containing documents with my name on them.
Not my business name.
My name.
Forged signatures.
A power of attorney I had never signed.
Two loan applications submitted in my name to institutions I had never contacted.
"He was building a second layer," Diane said.
"If the Garrett-Hale accounts were ever traced, there was a paper trail pointing to you."
I didn't say anything.
"He was going to let you take the fall," she said.
The hallway was quiet.
Through the glass, I could see my accountant waiting at the table, patient, looking at his notes.
"How complete was it?" I asked.
"Complete enough that if you hadn't moved first, it would have been very difficult to untangle.
The forged power of attorney alone—" She stopped.
"You got out just in time, Rachel."
I thought about the night at the dinner table.
The sl*p.
The burn along my cheekbone.
The moment I had looked around the condo and asked whose house it was.
I had thought that night was the beginning of the end.
It was.
Just not in the way Marcus had planned.
"What happens now?" I asked.
"Reyes is filing for an expanded warrant.
They'll move to formally charge him — the original financial fraud, the forged documents, the undisclosed felony on the bank applications.
Ferris called me twenty minutes ago."
"What did he say?"
"He wants to talk about a plea."
I looked through the glass at my accountant.
"Tell him we're listening," I said.
"But the forged documents with my name on them are not negotiable.
Whatever he pleads to, that has to be in it."
"Agreed," Diane said.
"There's one more thing."
"What?"
"Sandra Okafor came in voluntarily this morning.
She brought her own attorney." Diane paused.
"She's cooperating fully.
She's been cooperating since yesterday afternoon, apparently.
She had records of her own — messages, transfers, things Marcus sent her." Another pause.
"She thought they were going to get married, Rachel.
He had shown her a ring."
The hallway felt very small.
"Is she going to be charged?"
"That's not determined yet.
Her attorney is arguing she was deceived.
Given what she brought in voluntarily, I think they'll consider it." Diane's voice softened slightly.
"She asked if you were all right."
I looked at the ceiling.
"Tell her I am," I said.
"Tell her I hope she is too."
I went back into the meeting.
My accountant looked up.
"Everything okay?"
"Getting there," I said.
And for the first time in a very long time, I meant it.
But that evening, sitting alone at the kitchen table with the folder of documents Diane had couriered over — the forged power of attorney, my name in Marcus's handwriting, the loan applications I had never seen — I felt something I hadn't expected.
Not anger.
Not relief.
Just the quiet, cold weight of understanding how close I had come to losing everything.
And the knowledge that Marcus, even now, was still negotiating.
Still calculating.
Still looking for a way to land on his feet.
May you like
The plea conversation hadn't happened yet.
And Marcus, I knew, would not go quietly.
