When Price asked why the deadline mattered, she found the answer in a loan document obtained through the investigation. Lakeview had borrowed against anticipated auction proceeds. Payment was due soon. If the sale failed, the lender could claim the company’s pledged assets and demand additional security.
The fake car was not simply a vanity project. It was part of a financial house of cards.
To make its paperwork stand, Gregory needed the real Mustang to be unavailable long enough for the transaction to close, and preferably for its physical identifying marks to be tampered with. An ownership dispute and a controlled storage lot would provide both time and access.
Suddenly, Logan’s desperate attempts to borrow the Mustang no longer looked like the whole plan. His tantrum had provided Vivien with a public pretext to make Elijah appear unreasonable. The fraudulent title filing had begun before the boy’s loudest confrontation. Gregory had been arranging the real operation while his family kept Elijah occupied with HOA letters.
Price called Elijah with only what she could properly share.
“We’ve found evidence that the second vehicle isn’t what its title claims,” she said. “Your father’s records are important.”
“Was he involved in any of this?”
“We have no evidence he did anything wrong. In fact, there’s evidence he refused to cooperate with people who wanted identifying information.”
Elijah closed his eyes. He pictured his father bending over a notebook with grease on his fingers.
“He knew something was off,” Elijah said.
“It appears he did.”
For the first time since the police had arrived in his driveway, Elijah allowed himself to feel more than anger.
He felt the enormous, aching relief of discovering that his father’s carefulness might protect him one last time.
CHAPTER 17: THE VOTE VIVIEN COULDN’T STOP
Vivien called an emergency association meeting as soon as she heard that Sterling Asset Recovery was being investigated. She planned to describe the outside scrutiny as an attack on the neighborhood, a campaign by disgruntled residents who disliked being held to standards.
The clubhouse was already crowded when she arrived. Residents stood shoulder to shoulder along the walls. Marlene Ellis sat in the first row with her folder on her lap. Sandra stood near the back, talking quietly with the board’s newly appointed records custodian.
