No Longer Anyone’s Accessory Chapter 09
On the way back to the hotel, I crossed Westminster Bridge. The night Thames threw back the lights of the Houses of Parliament.
My phone rang. Corbin Sloane, the lawyer.
“Ms. Whitfield. I’ve found some things.”
“Go ahead.”
“Your husband’s mother, Ursula Wexler. Over the past three years she has, in fact, been engaged in so-called ‘investing’ — just not in the stable funds she claimed.”
“Then what?”
“High-risk cryptocurrency speculation. The kind of wildly volatile digital-coin trading that makes a roulette wheel in Vegas look like a safe bet.”
I stopped walking.
“How much did she lose?”
“From what we’ve been able to trace through available channels so far — at least two million evaporated in a string of cascading margin-call liquidations. Of what was left, one chunk went to her younger brother Dale, back in Kentucky, to start some kind of RV park business. The rest was blown on a pile of worthless health supplements and gold chains.”
“So the three million Trevor thought his mother was ‘carefully managing’ for him —”
“Essentially zero.”
I leaned against the bridge railing and looked up into the London night.
“Mr. Sloane, can we get our hands on this evidence?”
“Bank statements and trading-platform transaction records. We’re moving through legal channels to compel their release. They’ll come in through official procedures.”
“Then do it.”
“Understood. One more thing.”
“What?”
“Trevor’s credit card — the supplementary one whose billing you switched to the joint account. Last week he attempted several high-value purchases. All declined. Three swipes in a row, none went through. After that, he went to an online lender and tried to apply for a personal loan in your name.”
A chill ran through my whole body.
“In my name. Using what?”
“Your Social Security number. Saved from your jointly filed tax returns. Don’t worry — the loan didn’t go through. The credit bureau tripped a fraud alert and blocked it.”
“Mr. Sloane.”
“Here.”
“Freeze my credit. All three major bureaus. Immediately. And run a full check on whether he’s opened anything else in my name.”
“Already underway.”
I hung up. I kept walking, my pace twice what it had been.
I’d thought the worst case was a man-child husband and a greedy mother-in-law.
The truth was far filthier than I’d imagined.
Three million — two hundred thousand of it torched by his mother gambling on crypto.
The rest gone, whereabouts unknown.
And he’d turned right around and tried to steal my identity to take out a loan.
Trevor. You and your mother aren’t two parasites.
You’re two criminals.
