Chapter 4 - Thirty-Eight Million Dollars

I arrived at Mara's office in clothes borrowed from Dani Flores. A reporter was already waiting outside.

"You don't have to face cameras," Dani told me.

"I don't plan to."

Mara closed her office door and laid three pages on the table. "Here's what we know. Marcus is trying to move thirty-eight million dollars from restricted housing reserves through a construction contractor called Blue Heron Services. The receiving company was incorporated eight months ago. Marcus has an undisclosed interest in it."

"And the repair fund?"

"It's supposed to cover roofs, elevators, boilers, and emergency work in four apartment complexes."

I stared at the bank routing information. The spreadsheet was full of people nobody had heard.

"Can we stop it?"

"The bank has placed a temporary hold. We're asking the judge to preserve the money and records while ownership and fraud claims are examined. We're not pretending an investigation is a verdict."

I nodded. That was why I'd hired Mara. She cared more about facts than slogans.

An investigator named Naomi Price joined us by video. She worked with the state financial-crimes division. She asked about the alleged forged consent, the payments, and whether I could identify the person who had given Marcus my mother's original files. I couldn't.

"We need an authenticated copy," Naomi said. "And we need to know whether the restricted funds were actually spent or merely queued for transfer."

Mara showed me a memo signed by my mother.

*No disbursement may be approved without independent inspection when tenant safety is implicated.*

Below the memo was a handwritten note: Arthur told me not to put this in writing. I did anyway.

I remembered my mother coming home late from a meeting, sitting at our kitchen table without taking off her coat. She had looked frightened. I was sixteen.

"Why didn't she tell me?" I asked.

"Maybe she hoped she could fix it," Mara said. "Maybe she was protecting you. We can't know yet."

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Dani's phone buzzed. She read the message and looked up sharply.

"Ivy," she said, "the building manager at Lakeview just called. They started tearing out the boiler room this morning. No permits posted."