Chapter 2 - The Paper Trail
I stared at the forged signature until the blue ink blurred before my eyes.
Lukas had not only betrayed our marriage, but he had committed a massive felony to leave me with nothing.
I carefully took high-resolution photos of every single page of the fraudulent document.
I put the papers back exactly as I had found them and closed the broken lockbox to buy myself some time.
My next stop was the downtown branch of our primary bank.
I sat in the manager's office, requesting a full, detailed printout of our joint savings and checking accounts.
The manager handed me a thick stack of papers with a deeply sympathetic look on his face.
I scanned the recent transactions, my hands shaking with absolute fury.
The five thousand dollars Lukas claimed was an investment was actually a retainer fee for a notoriously aggressive family law attorney.
But the financial bleeding did not stop there.
Lukas had been siphoning thousands of dollars into a private offshore trust account for the past six months.
I immediately instructed the manager to freeze my direct deposits and move my personal savings into a new, secure account.
The manager typed rapidly on his keyboard before pausing with a confused frown.
He informed me that the system wouldn't allow him to completely lock the joint account.
I asked him why he couldn't freeze an account that had my legal name on it.
He looked up from his screen with wide, apologetic eyes.
He told me that Lukas had visited the branch yesterday afternoon to make an administrative change.
May you like
Lukas had added a secondary authorized signer with full withdrawal privileges.
The new signer on my life savings was Sophia Weber.
