Rebecca actually laughed.
Everyone looked at her.
“Derek,” she said, “you may want to stop speaking.”
He pointed at me.
“This
whole thing is because of him. Claire told me he controlled all the money.”
I looked at Claire.
“Did you?”
She whispered, “You did.”
“I paid everything.”
“You made me ask you before big purchases.”
“Because you once bought a nineteen-thousand-dollar car without telling me.”
“I was miserable!”
There it
was again.
The doctrine of feeling.
If Claire felt trapped, then any action became justified.
Rebecca handed another packet to me.
“There’s one more issue.”
I almost didn’t want it.
“What?”
“The home equity loan.”
“I thought the house couldn’t be borrowed against.”
“It can’t.”
“Then how—”
“It wasn’t borrowed against your house.”
Everyone went still.
Rebecca looked toward Derek.
“It was borrowed against this gym.”
Derek’s mouth fell open.
“What?”
“The loan documents use
Apex Predator’s property interest as collateral.”
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
Rebecca pulled out the document.
“It only looked like a residential equity line in the account portal because the servicing bank mislabeled the digital product. The underlying collateral is commercial.”
Derek grabbed the papers.
His eyes raced over them.
“This isn’t my signature.”
Rebecca nodded.
“Exactly.”
Now Derek looked at Claire.
Everything changed.
“Claire?”
She backed away.
“Derek, listen—”
“What did you do?”
“I was trying
to help us.”
“You forged my name?”
“You said the gym was drowning!”
“I said business was slow!”
“You said you needed money!”
The entire room watched.
Derek looked sick.
Rebecca spoke.
“The sixty-five thousand was deposited into another company.”
“What company?” I asked.
She looked at Claire.
“
Northstar Wellness Consulting.”
Derek frowned.
“I’ve never heard of it.”
Claire was crying harder now.
