Chapter 2 - THE FORTY PERCENT
Claire pointed toward a narrow connecting door behind a bookcase.
“Records room.”
I slipped through.
She closed it behind me.
Seconds later, I heard the main office door unlock.
Travis entered.
“Who were you talking to?”
“No one.”
“That door was locked.”
“I was reviewing confidential payroll material.”
A pause.
Then:
“Where’s Eliza?”
My hand froze on the records-room handle.
Claire answered calmly.
“Cleaning.”
Another pause.
“No.”
Travis’s voice changed.
“She was here.”
I held my breath.
“How would you know?”
“My office smells like her cleaning spray.”
For one absurd second, I nearly laughed.
The citrus disinfectant that embarrassed me every night might expose me.
Then Claire said:
“I asked her to wipe the conference table earlier.”
Silence.
Finally, Travis said:
“Keep her away from my desk.”
The office door shut.
Claire waited almost a minute before letting me out.
“You need to leave.”
I nodded.
But before I moved, I photographed the transfer authorization and the founding agreement.
I did not take the originals.
That became important later.
From the parking garage, I called my divorce attorney.
Martin Shaw answered despite the hour.
“Eliza?”
“I need you to listen before you ask questions.”
I told him everything.
When I finished, he was silent for several seconds.
“Do not confront Travis.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Do not take company originals.”
“I didn’t.”
“Do not log into systems you are not authorized to access.”
“I won’t.”
Then he said:
“Send me the photographs through the secure portal.”
I did.
The following morning, Martin called before seven.
“That forty-percent agreement is significant.”
“Am I still an owner?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Ownership documents don’t disappear just because your husband says they did. But we need the full company record.”
He explained that Northgate was an LLC.
If my membership interest had been diluted, transferred, redeemed, or converted, there should have been documentation.
Member consents.
Amendments.
Capital records.
Tax schedules.
Something.
By noon, Martin had retained a business-litigation attorney named Lena Park.
Lena did not promise me forty percent.
She promised to find paperwork.
That was better.
Two days later, they obtained documents through formal requests connected to the divorce and my asserted membership rights.
Travis responded quickly.
He produced an amendment dated five years earlier.
According to that document, I had voluntarily reduced my interest from forty percent to six percent during a recapitalization.
At the bottom was my signature.
My stomach turned.
I had never seen the amendment.
Lena stared at it.
“Don’t react yet.”
“That’s not my signature.”
“I believe you.”
“Then what do we do?”
“We prove it.”
A forensic document examiner compared the signature to several known samples.
The result was not subtle.
The signature on the amendment was a digital copy.
Same microscopic shape.
Same tiny flaw.
Same old supplier guarantee.
The exact document Claire had shown me.
Then Dana Brooks, the forensic accountant Lena hired, found something even stranger.
The alleged recapitalization did not match Northgate’s tax records.
For years after the supposed amendment, company filings still reflected an economic interest consistent with my original ownership structure.
Some later schedules were altered.
Others contradicted each other.
“It’s messy,” Dana said.
“Messy good or messy bad?”
“Messy for everyone.”
That became the theme of the case.
Nothing happened instantly.
There was no magical courtroom moment where a judge slammed a gavel and handed me forty percent of Northgate.
Instead, lawyers requested documents.
Travis objected.
We responded.
Accountants traced transfers.
Emails were preserved.
Servers were imaged.
Then Dana found Hawthorne.
Not merely its ownership.
Its purpose.
Hawthorne Development Partners had been formed eighteen months earlier to acquire a 220-acre industrial tract outside Indianapolis.
Northgate had spent years evaluating that same property.
The land had enormous potential because a logistics expansion was planned nearby.
Northgate had paid for preliminary surveys.
Northgate employees had handled zoning research.
Northgate had paid consultants.
Then the opportunity had quietly moved to Hawthorne.
A company owned by Travis, Victor, and Rebecca.
The $3.4 million transfer was labeled:
Strategic Development Advance.
But there was no normal independent approval.
Instead, the file contained my supposed authorization.
Dana looked at me.
“If Hawthorne buys this property with money moved from Northgate, then future profit can sit outside Northgate.”
“And outside the business valuation.”
“Potentially.”
“Meaning Travis keeps it?”
“Not automatically. But he makes the tracing harder.”
I thought about the conversation under the desk.
It creates doubt.
That was Travis’s strategy everywhere.
Not clean theft.
Confusion.
Overlapping entities.
Old signatures.
Contradictory ownership records.
Then Lena uncovered an email from Victor to Travis.
If Eliza challenges consent, we rely on physical access plus prior involvement.
Travis replied:
Exactly. She’s already inside Records three nights a week.
I stared at the screen.
They were preparing to say I could have created my own forged documents.
Martin leaned back.
“That changes things.”
“How?”
“Because now the cleaning job is not just embarrassing context.”
“What is it?”
“Potential evidence of a plan.”
Within forty-eight hours, Lena filed for emergency relief to prevent the $3.4 million from leaving Northgate until ownership and authorization could be examined.
Travis’s attorneys called the request outrageous.
They said I was a disgruntled spouse trying to interfere with a legitimate business transaction.
Then they submitted something I had not expected.
A sworn statement from Travis.
In it, he accused me of secretly entering executive files while working as a cleaner.
He claimed he had recently discovered “possible manipulation of corporate records.”
And attached as support?
My badge history.
The exact badge history he had created by assigning me to those rooms.
When I read the affidavit, I felt physically cold.
Martin saw my face.
“Remember what he said under the desk.”
“I do.”
“He built this before you knew you needed to defend yourself.”
Then Lena turned another page.
“And he made one mistake.”
“What?”
She pointed at the access report.
My badge showed repeated entry to Records.
But the forged amendment had been uploaded to Northgate’s document system at 2:14 p.m.
On a Tuesday.
While I was picking Maisie up from school.
May you like
And the user account that uploaded it belonged to someone else.
TRAVIS.FENWICK.
