And my son was building a paper trail that said I was confused.
Then Detective Mills pushed another photograph toward me.
Kristen and Martin again.
Different location.
A restaurant parking lot.
Date stamp:
seven weeks earlier.
I whispered:
“How long?”
“We don’t know.”
I stared at Martin’s face.
Thirty-two years.
He had known Trevor since infancy.
Held him at his baptism.
Taught him to drive a manual transmission in an empty construction yard.
He used to call him Trev.
Now he was meeting secretly with Trevor’s wife.
“What do you think Kristen is doing?”
Daniel answered carefully.
“Based on the documents we’ve seen, I don’t think the goal was only borrowing against River Oaks.”
“Then what?”
“I think they were preparing to shift several Cedarline properties into entities you did not control.”
“For what?”
“Leverage.”
“Sale.”
“Collateral.”
“Possibly a forced internal buyout.”
I stared.
“They were trying to take Cedarline.”
