Chapter 6: The Woman Who Wore My Name
My attorney called at seven forty-five the next morning.
Her name was Grace Alderman.
I had used her for my business contracts for six years.
She was sixty-one years old, had silver hair she kept short, and had never once told me what I wanted to hear when the truth was more useful.
"Tell me everything," she said.
"Start from the beginning."
I did.
It took twenty minutes.
She didn't interrupt.
When I finished, she was quiet for a moment.
"The notary is willing to cooperate?"
"She reached out voluntarily.
She's worried about her license."
"Good.
That makes her credible.
Send me her messages and the plate number.
I'll have someone run it." A pause.
"Emma, the prior fr@ud case — did Daniel ever mention Sylvia Crane to you after the gala?"
"No.
He introduced her as a former business partner and changed the subject."
"Did you know about the court filing?"
"I found it last night.
He was removed as co-defendant before trial."
"Removed, not cleared," Grace said.
"There's a difference." Another pause.
"I need you to do something this morning, and I need you to do it before you speak to Daniel or anyone in that family."
"Tell me."
"I need you to go to your bank in person.
Not online.
In person, with your identification and your attorney's contact information.
You need to formally report the fr@ud, request a full transaction audit going back to the start of your marriage, and place a fraud alert on every account tied to your name or your social security number."
"I'll go at nine."
"I'll meet you there."
I arrived at the bank at five minutes to nine.
Grace was already waiting outside, in a gray coat, holding two cups of coffee.
She handed me one without comment.
The meeting took two hours.
The bank's fr@ud manager, a quiet man named Howard, pulled every transaction record while we sat across from him.
He flagged eleven transfers I had not authorized.
The total, across three and a half years, was just over $740,000.
Not $480,000.
Not $680,000.
Seven hundred and forty thousand dollars.
Howard set the printed summary on the desk between us.
Grace picked it up.
Read it.
Set it back down.
"Is this everything?" she asked.
"Everything we can see from the account history," Howard said.
"If there are external accounts we're not aware of, those would require a subpoena."
"We'll get one," Grace said.
On the way out, she stopped on the sidewalk and looked at me.
"How are you holding up?"
"I want to understand how this happened," I said.
"I want to understand exactly who did what and when."
"We'll get there." She put her coffee cup in a trash bin.
"I need you to stay somewhere safe tonight.
Not the hotel — somewhere they don't know.
Is there anyone you trust completely?
Someone outside the Mercer circle?"
I thought for a moment.
"My college roommate.
She lives forty minutes out."
"Call her.
Don't tell Daniel where you're going." She looked at me steadily.
"Emma, whoever impersonated you to that notary had access to your full identity documentation.
Passport number, social security, home address.
That level of access doesn't come from a lucky guess."
"Someone inside the marriage," I said.
"Or someone who had access to someone inside the marriage." She paused.
"Has Daniel ever had access to your personal documents?
Passport.
Social security card.
Birth certificate."
I thought about the fireproof safe in our home office.
Daniel knew the combination.
I had given it to him two years ago when we were updating our wills.
"Yes," I said.
Grace nodded once.
"Then we need to move quickly.
Because if Sylvia Crane is involved and she has done this before, she will know exactly when to disappear."
My phone buzzed.
A text from a number I now recognized as Patricia Holt's.
*I remembered something else.
When she left, she made a phone call outside my office window.
I heard one sentence before she got in the car.*
*She said: "Tell Vivian it's done."*
I read the message twice.
Then I forwarded it to Grace without a word.
Grace read it.
Her expression didn't change, but she typed something immediately into her own phone.
May you like
"I'm calling the DA's office," she said.
"This just became a criminal matter."
