Chapter 11 - The Knock on the Door
Three days later, the storm had passed, leaving behind a crisp, cloudless Sunday sky.
The wedding day had come and gone without a ceremony. Marcus had handled the public fallout with ruthless efficiency: a simple, tasteful announcement stating that the marriage between Brooke Vance and Reid Montgomery had been canceled by mutual consent due to irreconcilable personal differences.
Of course, the rumor mill was already churning. High society loved nothing more than a scandal, but the truth was guarded closely enough that the specifics remained confined to the eighty people who had sat in that ballroom.
I was staying at Arthur’s lake house in Geneva, fifty miles away from the city. The quiet water of the lake lapped against the wooden dock below the balcony. For the first time in years, my phone wasn't buzzing with vendor confirmations, seating charts, or Reid's neurotic check-ins.
My banking app showed that Marcus had already frozen the joint account and transferred my remaining funds, along with an additional ten thousand dollars Arthur had wired into my personal checking as a "fresh start" gift.
At 2:15 p.m., my phone buzzed on the kitchen island.
It was Arthur.
"Hey, Dad," I answered, watching a pair of mallards drift across the gray water. "How are the movers doing at the Lake Forest house?"
Silence greeted me on the other end of the line.
"Dad?"
"Brooke," Arthur’s voice sounded tight. Distorted. The kind of tone he only used when an emergency had blown through one of his distribution warehouses. "Where are you right now?"
"I'm at the lake house. In the kitchen. What's wrong? Did Eleanor try to break in?"
"No," Arthur said slowly. "Eleanor isn't at the house. Eleanor was detained two hours ago at O'Hare International Airport."
My heart gave a sudden, sharp thud against my ribs. "Detained? Why?"
"She had two carry-on bags containing three hundred thousand dollars in bearer bonds and cashier's checks drawn from a commercial account under Reid's father's holding company," Arthur said, his voice dropping into a tense whisper. "Richard Montgomery didn't just know about the affair, Brooke. Richard and Eleanor set up a secondary offshore fund six months ago using your signature on a forged corporate indemnity waiver."
The room seemed to tilt on its axis.
"My signature?" I gasped. "What are you talking about?"
"They used your credit rating and your marketing agency's corporate identity to secure a bridge loan before the merger. Richard was facing bankruptcy. He needed Eleanor’s cooperation to siphon funds out of my logistics firm to keep his business afloat until the wedding locked our assets together. When you blew up the rehearsal dinner, you didn't just expose Reid and Sloane. You collapsed Richard's entire money-laundering operation."
"Dad... is Richard—"
"Richard disappeared forty minutes ago," Arthur interrupted, his breathing ragged. "The FBI just raided the Montgomery headquarters in Chicago. Marcus is on his way to you right now with two private security guards. Lock all the doors, Brooke. Do not open the gate for anyone until Marcus calls you from the driveway."
Before I could answer, a loud, violent thud echoed through the lake house.
Someone was pounding on the heavy oak front door.
I froze, the phone still pressed against my ear.
*BANG. BANG. BANG.*
"Brooke?" Arthur shouted through the receiver. "Brooke, did you hear me?"
Through the frosted sidelight window of the foyer, I saw the distorted silhouette of a tall man standing on the porch.
And then, through the thick wood of the door, came a hoarse, desperate voice that made every drop of blood in my veins turn to ice.
"Brooke! Open the damn door! I know you're in there!"
May you like
It wasn't Reid.
It was Richard Montgomery. And in his hand, pressed flat against the frosted glass, was an official federal subpoena bearing my name.
