I came home from work to find a lavish dinner on the table, but my 11-year-old daughter was sitting alone in the kitchen eating noodles. “Grandma said we don’t deserve the same as them,” she told me, her voice trembling with fear. I glanced at the receipt, paid with my card, blocked it without a word, and left with her. An hour later, over a hundred phone calls revealed that that dinner was just the beginning of the deception…

PART 6
Rachel asked me to forward the company registration.

I searched Crestline Development Partners.

The company existed.

Barely.

Formed eight months earlier.

Business address.

A shared office suite in Riverside.

Managing member.

Darren Cole.

The name meant nothing to me.

Then Rachel searched him.

She called back.

“Have you heard of Darren Cole?”

“No.”

“He owns several small construction entities.”

“Is that bad?”

“Not automatically.”

“But two dissolved in the last four years.”

“Why?”

“Unpaid debts.”

“Tax liens.”

“Civil claims.”

I stared at the hotel wall.

“And Brandon knows him?”

“Apparently.”

Rachel paused.

“Do you remember a man at your house recently?”

I thought.

Then I remembered.

A barbecue.

Two months earlier.

Brandon had invited “a friend from golf.”

Tall.

Gray beard.

Expensive sunglasses.

His name had been Darren.

I had forgotten completely.

My stomach turned.

He had stood in my backyard.

Looked around the house.

Asked strange questions.

“When did you replace the roof?”

“How big is the lot?”

“Any second mortgage?”

At the time, Brandon laughed.

“He’s always thinking construction.”

No.

He had been assessing collateral.