Chapter 6: The Second Betrayal
David Marsh's office was on the fourth floor of a building downtown that smelled of old carpet and document storage.
He was in his early sixties, silver-haired, unhurried, and he read the entire folder without speaking while Jason and I sat across his desk and Patricia sat slightly to the side, watching him the way a person watches a doctor reading a scan.
When he finished, he closed the folder and put both palms flat on it.
"Mrs.
— I'm sorry, do you prefer Mrs.
or—"
"Ellen," I said.
"Just Ellen."
"Ellen.
I want to ask you one question and I need you to think before you answer." He leaned forward.
"Did Dennis Harlow ever bring anyone with him to these meetings?
A witness.
An associate.
Another person present in the room when you signed."
I thought back.
The kitchen table.
The documents spread across it.
Dennis across from me with his reading glasses on and his careful explanations.
"Once," I said.
"The third visit.
He brought a woman.
He said she was his office manager.
She sat in the corner the whole time.
I don't think she spoke more than ten words."
"Do you remember her name?"
"He introduced her.
I'm trying to—" I pressed my fingers against the table edge.
"Sandra.
He called her Sandra."
David wrote it down.
His pen moved slowly and precisely.
"What does Sandra have to do with it?" Jason asked.
"Possibly nothing," David said.
"Possibly everything." He opened the folder again to the third document.
"This signature here, on the line below yours, is a witness attestation.
It's Sandra's signature.
The problem is — if Sandra is not a licensed notary or a legally recognized witness in your state for this category of document, this attestation is defective.
And if the attestation is defective, the power of attorney embedded in this document may be entirely unenforceable." He looked at me.
"Which means Dennis Harlow has been operating under an authority he never actually had."
The room was quiet.
Jason said: "So he knew the document had a problem."
"Almost certainly," David said.
"Which is why he buried the clause where he did.
And why he brought a witness who appeared official without being verifiable."
I thought about Dennis at my kitchen table.
His reading glasses.
His careful voice.
His oldest-friend-of-Robert gentleness.
The way he always waited until I had finished asking questions before he answered, which I had thought was respect and which I now understood was calculation — time to decide exactly how much to give me.
"I want you to do one more thing for me before we proceed," David said.
He turned to his computer.
"I want to run Dennis Harlow's name through the civil court records."
He typed.
He waited.
He read.
His expression did not change, but something behind his eyes did.
"There are two prior civil complaints filed against Dennis Harlow in this state," he said.
"Both settled out of court.
Both involving disputed financial documents signed by recently widowed women." He looked up.
"Both within the past eight years."
Jason's chair scraped back from the desk.
"He targeted her," Jason said.
It wasn't a question.
"It appears so."
"He came to her right after Dad died and he—" Jason stopped.
He pressed his hand flat on the table.
"He sat in her kitchen and he—"
"Jason," I said quietly.
He looked at me.
His eyes were bright and very hard.
"We are going to make this right," I said.
He nodded once.
A short, tight nod.
David was already writing.
"I'm going to file an emergency petition Monday morning to formally revoke the power of attorney on grounds of defective attestation and fraudulent concealment.
I'll also begin the process of recovery.
Ellen, I need you to contact your bank first thing Monday and flag every outgoing transfer associated with Harlow's account number." He looked at both of us.
"Don't contact Dennis Harlow directly.
Don't signal that anything is happening.
If he suspects, he may move the money."
"He doesn't know yet," I said.
"Good.
Keep it that way."
We drove home in Jason's car.
Patricia sat in the back.
Nobody spoke for the first ten minutes.
Then Jason said: "Mom.
Chloe."
"I know."
"If she knew his name — if there's any connection—"
"I know, Jason."
He was quiet again.
Then: "How do you want to handle it?"
I watched the streetlights beginning to come on as the afternoon faded.
"Carefully," I said.
He pulled into my driveway.
My porch light was on — the automatic one that clicked on at dusk.
The house looked the same as always from the outside.
My phone buzzed.
A message from a number I didn't recognize.
I opened it.
*You should have left the laptop closed, Ellen.*
I stared at it.
Patricia, leaning forward from the back seat, saw my face.
"What is it?" she said.
I turned the phone so she could see the screen.
She read it.
Then she looked at me.
May you like
Then she said the thing I was already thinking.
"He knows."
