Chapter 4 - THE HOUSE THAT BELONGED TO A TRUST
Shaker Heights police arrived before we did.
Naomi contacted them after explaining that a household employee had reported possible destruction of documents and unauthorized access to locked trust property. She was careful not to exaggerate.
Spencer lived in the house.
Paisley did not.
The distinction mattered.
By the time our vehicle stopped outside, Paisley was seated in the rear of a patrol car but had not been arrested. Officers had detained her temporarily after finding her inside my private dressing room opening locked drawers.
Spencer stood in the foyer with an attorney on speakerphone.
The fireplace in his office held partially burned papers.
Officers prevented anyone from disturbing the ashes while they determined what authority existed to preserve potential evidence.
Mrs. Gladys waited in the kitchen.
She hugged me when I entered.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“For what?”
“I saw things before tonight.”
“What things?”
She glanced toward the hallway.
“Mr. Conway meeting Ms. Daley here while you were visiting the cemetery. Documents arriving under different company names. I told myself employers have private lives.”
“You were afraid of losing your job.”
“Yes.”
The answer was honest.
“I wish you had told me.”
“So do I.”
Spencer appeared at the kitchen entrance.
His tie was gone. His shirt collar stood open.
“Phoebe, we need five minutes alone.”
Naomi stepped beside me.
“No.”
“This is my wife.”
“She is represented.”
Spencer looked at me.
“Are you filing for divorce?”
“I am obtaining information.”
“You humiliated me in front of every investor in the city.”
“You attended the gala with your mistress.”
“Paisley was invited as a consultant.”
“Did consulting require kissing her in our SUV?”
He stopped.
Gladys looked away.
“You saw?” he asked.
“No. Paisley sent me a photograph because she wanted me to suffer.”
His face tightened.
“She was drinking.”
“She was cruel. Those are not the same.”
Spencer glanced toward the officers.
“This has gone too far.”
“You were burning documents.”
“Old forecasts.”
“Why tonight?”
“Because Apex suspended the deal. The information is commercially sensitive.”
“You destroy commercially sensitive information when due diligence begins?”
“My lawyer will explain.”
“He should.”
Paisley was released from temporary detention after giving identification and agreeing to leave. Officers lacked a basis to hold her once Spencer stated he had invited her into the home.
Before getting into a rideshare, she looked directly at me.
“Ask your husband when he first learned your real name.”
Then she left.
Spencer heard.
“Don’t listen to her.”
“When did you learn?”
“Tonight.”
Paisley’s expression had said otherwise.
Naomi requested that Spencer preserve his phone, laptop, company files, cloud accounts, and communications under anticipated litigation. Apex outside counsel issued a separate preservation notice related to the financing review.
A preservation notice was not a magical freeze.
People could still delete evidence.
But deletion after notice could carry serious consequences and might be recoverable through other systems.
The next morning, a judge granted a temporary order preventing either spouse from disposing of significant marital property or accessing the other’s clearly separate trust assets. Spencer agreed to move into a hotel for ten days while occupancy issues were reviewed.
He was not thrown onto the street.
His company paid for a suite.
I remained in the house with Gladys and private security arranged through the trust.
The office fireplace was examined under legal process.
The partially burned pages contained cash-flow forecasts, investor lists, and handwritten notes mentioning something called Project Lantern.
One fragment bore Helena Voss’s initials.
Another contained the number 12.4.
Twelve-point-four million.
We did not yet know what it meant.
In my bedroom, nothing obvious was missing until I opened the vanity drawer.
The red velvet box was gone.
The old SIM card was in my phone, but the box had contained something else beneath the lining—a folded card my mother had given me on my eighteenth birthday.
It read:
When men tell you power makes love impossible, ask whether they mean your power or theirs.
I had not read it in years.
Now someone had taken it.
Gladys entered carrying a stack of envelopes.
“These arrived for Mr. Conway over the last eight months. He told me to put them in his office, but one slipped behind the cabinet.”
The envelope bore the name LANTERN STRATEGIC PARTNERS.
Inside was a statement showing a balance of $12.4 million.
The account holder was not Spencer.
May you like
It was a limited company called P.D. Advisory.
Paisley Daley.
