Chapter 4 - The Documents in the Truck
The truck was held at an impound lot while the insurance company reviewed the accident.
Because my name appeared on the registration, I was allowed to collect personal property.
I expected work files, tools, and the raincoat Garrett always left behind the seat.
Instead, I found a leather document case beneath the passenger floor mat.
Inside were drafts prepared by an estate-planning attorney.
Garrett intended to change his life-insurance beneficiaries.
Half to Brooke.
Half to an unborn child identified only as Baby Ellison.
My daughter and I were not listed.
There was also a proposed transfer of Tide & Glow, my skincare studio, into a marital holding company.
The studio had been mine before marriage.
I built it from a single rented treatment room into a successful business with six employees.
Garrett had no ownership interest.
But attached to the draft transfer was a signature page carrying my name.
The signature looked almost perfect.
It was not mine.
The holding company had been created three months earlier.
Its managing member was Garrett.
Its secondary beneficiary was Brooke.
The plan was simple.
Garrett would transfer my studio into the company using forged authorization, borrow against its value, and use part of the proceeds to buy a coastal property.
Brooke believed the house would become their home after our divorce.
Garrett told her the studio already belonged to him through marriage.
The affair was devastating.
The financial plan was deliberate.
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He was not simply preparing to leave me.
He was preparing to use what I built to finance the life replacing me.
