Chapter 5: The Thing Lauren Left Behind
Grace's attorney was a woman named Patricia Holt, sixty-three, who had been practicing family law in Charlotte for thirty years and who had the particular manner of someone who had heard everything and was surprised by nothing.
She listened to Grace for twenty-two minutes without interrupting.
Then she said: "The jewelry."
"Yes."
"Do you have any record of the sale?
Receipt, bank deposit, anything?"
"I have the receipt from the estate jeweler and the deposit record.
I kept them.
I don't know why I kept them.
I just did."
Patricia wrote something down.
"Good.
That matters." She set her pen flat on the desk.
"Grace, I want to be straightforward with you.
What you've described — the affair, the sl@p, the potential business exposure through this woman — these are not separate problems.
They connect.
A family law attorney and a business attorney need to be talking to each other before anything else moves."
"I understand."
"Do you know what you want?"
Grace looked at the window.
"I know what I don't want.
I don't want to make a decision out of last night's anger and regret it in six months."
"That's a wise position." Patricia paused.
"Is there anything else I should know before we talk about next steps?"
Grace reached into her pocket.
She set the cream-colored box on the desk between them.
Patricia looked at it.
"What's this?"
"His anniversary gift," Grace said.
"That I never gave him."
Patricia opened the box.
She looked at the ultrasound photograph for a moment.
Then she closed it gently and slid it back across the desk.
"How far along?"
"Seventeen weeks."
"Does he know?"
"No."
Patricia was quiet for a moment.
"That changes the legal picture considerably.
Not in a way that hurts you — in a way that protects you more.
But you need to know that once he knows, his attorney will know, and the dynamic shifts."
"I'm not hiding it from him permanently.
I just—" Grace stopped.
"I need to know what Lauren actually did first.
Before I bring a child into this conversation."
"Then let's find out." Patricia opened her laptop.
"Tell me everything you know about the Southgate acquisition and this woman's involvement."
---
Two days later, Grace was in her kitchen when her phone rang.
It was Marcus.
"You need to come look at something," he said.
"Not over the phone."
She drove to Daniel's house, where all three brothers were waiting at the kitchen table.
Marcus had a folder open in front of him.
"We've been working with Gerald's attorney," he said.
"Going back through the Raleigh documents.
And we found something." He turned a page toward her.
"Lauren Pierce is a legal name change.
Filed four years ago in Virginia.
Her original name was Laura Pennick, like I said.
But before that—" he tapped the page— "she was Laura Crane."
Grace looked at the name.
"Crane," Daniel said.
"As in Richard Crane.
The developer who went to federal prison eight years ago for wire fraud and land scheme convictions."
Grace looked up.
"She's his daughter," James said.
The kitchen was quiet.
"She grew up watching him do it," Marcus said.
"Then she learned to do it cleaner.
Name changes, consulting roles, always one step removed from the actual contracts.
By the time anyone looks at her, she's already somewhere else."
"She targeted Ethan," Grace said.
It wasn't a question.
"Walker Development has been growing fast.
Southgate would have been the biggest acquisition in the company's history.
If she could get close enough to structure the deal, she could position herself to skim from the transaction, leave the liability with Ethan, and walk away." Daniel folded his hands on the table.
"We think she's done it at least twice before.
Raleigh was one.
There may be another firm in Tennessee."
Grace sat back in her chair.
"Does Ethan know any of this yet?"
"No," Daniel said.
"We wanted you to know first."
She looked at her oldest brother.
"Why?"
"Because you're the one who decides what happens next," he said.
"Not us."
Grace looked at the folder on the table.
At the name Laura Crane printed on a Virginia court document.
At the photograph clipped to the corner — a younger Lauren, sharper-faced, standing outside a courthouse.
"She was in my house," Grace said quietly.
"On my anniversary.
Wearing his favorite perfume."
Nobody said anything.
"She knew exactly what she was doing," Grace said.
"All of it.
The timing.
The way she spoke to me.
She wanted me to feel small." She paused.
"She wanted me to feel like I'd already lost."
James reached across the table and put his hand over hers.
She didn't pull away.
"What do you need from us?" he asked.
Grace looked at the folder one more time.
Then she closed it.
"I need you to send everything to Patricia Holt," she said.
"And I need you to find out if the Hendersons have been contacted yet about the Southgate deal."
"Why the Hendersons?"
"Because if Lauren misrepresented their position to Ethan, they deserve to know.
And because—" Grace stood up— "if there's a way to unwind what she did before it becomes a federal matter, Ethan needs to be the one to do it.
Himself.
Without her."
Daniel looked at her carefully.
"You're trying to protect him."
"I'm trying to protect what's fair," Grace said.
"That's not always the same thing."
She picked up her bag.
May you like
"Send me the folder too," she said.
"I have a conversation to finish."
