Chapter 5 - NORTH RIDGE
North Ridge controlled the only practical route from Hartman Resort to the county’s planned highway interchange.
Without my land, expansion would require a bridge, environmental review, and millions in additional construction.
Victor had offered to buy the property the year before.
I refused because my grandmother placed it in a conservation trust during her lifetime, leaving me limited development rights but full control over access.
Gregory called my refusal sentimental.
After our engagement, he stopped asking.
Now I understood why.
The access authorization was suspended while the signature was investigated. Victor’s company sued anyway, claiming I had verbally agreed to cooperate after marriage.
Gregory’s attorneys sent me an annulment proposal.
He would withdraw the assault allegations.
The family would pay my legal expenses.
In exchange, I would confirm the North Ridge authorization and surrender any claim against the resort.
The proposal did not mention love, marriage, or the bat.
It treated the wedding as a failed transaction.
A forensic examiner inspected my bridal tablet.
The signature had been created using a stored image from a routine insurance form. Gregory accessed the device while I changed dresses before the reception.
He did not need my passcode.
I had given it to him months earlier because married people were not supposed to hide screens from each other.
The county placed a temporary freeze on new access permits.
Victor responded by telling local officials that I was obstructing jobs and road improvements because of a marital disagreement.
My consulting contract with a defense supplier was placed under review after Gregory’s affidavit described me as unstable.
The family was attacking from every direction while claiming the cabin was private.
Then Naomi found Gregory’s former fiancée.
Lauren Vale.
Two years earlier, she had suffered a broken collarbone during a “fall” at the same cabin.
The incident occurred the night before she signed over her interest in a lakeside parcel to a Hartman company.
When I called her, she said only one sentence.
May you like
“Did they knock three times?”
Then she hung up.
