Chapter 4: The Other Name
The name on the document was Renata Voss.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
The letters didn't rearrange themselves into something less damaging.
"Who is Renata Voss?" I asked.
Olivia folded her hands in her lap.
"I was hoping you could tell me."
"You found this in Arthur's desk and you're hoping I could tell you."
"I didn't know if it was a business associate.
A client.
I didn't want to assume—"
"It's a property transfer, Olivia.
In her name.
For the Millbrook account." I looked up.
"That's my account.
That property was purchased with my earnings before Arthur and I were even married."
Chloe shifted on the sofa.
"Maybe there's a legal explanation.
A trust structure, or—"
"Stop talking, Chloe."
She stopped.
My father came and stood beside me.
He looked at the document over my shoulder, and even though he didn't know the legal language, he understood the shape of it — his daughter's name missing from something that should have carried it.
"How long has he known this Renata?" he asked Olivia.
Olivia was quiet for a moment.
"The name first appeared in his phone about fourteen months ago.
I noticed it because he changed his passcode around the same time."
Fourteen months.
I had been in Germany for the last three of those.
Before that, I had been traveling to Frankfurt every six weeks for the regulatory review Arthur claimed to have insider knowledge about.
The review he had used to justify stealing my father's land.
I set the document on the counter and picked up my own phone.
I called my attorney.
It rang four times.
Then: "Genevieve.
I wasn't expecting to hear from you until next week."
"Patricia, I need you to pull up everything attached to the Millbrook property account.
Tonight if possible."
A pause.
"Is something wrong?"
"I'm standing in my kitchen holding a property transfer document in someone else's name.
Dated four months ago.
I never signed it."
Another pause.
Longer.
"Read me the name on the transfer," Patricia said.
"Renata Voss."
I heard the sound of a keyboard.
Then silence.
Then Patricia's voice, careful and precise: "Genevieve.
I need you to not touch anything else in that document.
Don't photograph it with your personal phone.
I'm going to send a courier tonight."
"You know that name."
"I know that name appeared in a filing connected to a shell company registered in Delaware eight months ago.
I flagged it at the time because it was adjacent to one of your holding accounts, but there was no direct link I could act on." She paused.
"There's a direct link now."
My father was watching me.
I turned away from him slightly — not to hide anything, but because I needed one moment where I wasn't also holding someone else's fear.
"How bad?" I asked quietly.
"I don't know yet," Patricia said.
"But Genevieve — where is Arthur right now?"
"He walked out ten minutes ago to make a phone call."
The silence on Patricia's end told me everything her words didn't.
"Lock the document in something," she said.
"Don't let it leave the house.
And call me the moment he comes back."
I hung up.
Olivia was watching me from the sofa.
Chloe had gone very still.
"Did you know about Renata Voss before you found that envelope?" I asked Olivia.
"No."
"Did Arthur ever mention a shell company?
A Delaware registration?
Anything structured outside our joint accounts?"
"No." She hesitated.
"But six months ago he asked me to sign something.
He said it was a routine update to his estate documents.
I signed without reading it."
The room went quiet.
My father sat down heavily in the armchair by the window.
He pressed his hands flat on his knees and looked at the floor.
"Genevieve," he said, without looking up.
"How much money are we talking about?"
I looked at the document.
At the Millbrook account number printed neatly in the transfer header.
At the property value listed in the lower right corner.
"The Millbrook property alone," I said, "is worth $4.5 million."
Nobody spoke.
Then the front door opened, and Arthur walked back in.
He stopped when he saw all of us looking at him.
He looked at the document on the counter.
His expression didn't break — but something behind his eyes went very still.
"I can explain that," he said.
"I know you can," I said.
"But I'd like you to explain it to Patricia first."
He looked at the phone in my hand.
"You called your attorney."
May you like
"I did."
For the first time since I had walked through the door, Arthur looked genuinely afraid.
