Chapter 3 - Gregory’s First Mistake
Gregory’s first mistake was believing my silence meant ignorance.
His second was underestimating how much a financial analyst noticed.
During our engagement, he asked ordinary questions.
How much did I pay for the condo?
Did I still have a mortgage?
Was my retirement plan employer-sponsored?
Did my father leave me anything?
At the time, the questions sounded like preparation for marriage.
Now they sounded like research.
Helen ordered an immediate credit freeze and requested a review of all financial activity connected to my identity.
By noon, we found three suspicious inquiries.
One mortgage lender.
Two private banks.
All submitted within the previous month.
I had not applied for anything.
The mortgage inquiry included a proposed loan against my condo.
The application listed Gregory as co-owner.
He was not.
The forged document carried my electronic signature.
My signature was imperfect but convincing.
Helen studied it.
“Where could he have obtained this?”
“I signed our wedding vendor contracts on his tablet.”
“Did you save the signature?”
“I don’t know.”
“He did.”
We contacted the lender and stopped the application.
Then Helen called a forensic accountant named Marcus Lee.
I almost laughed when she introduced him.
“I am a forensic accountant.”
“You’re also the victim,” Helen said. “You need distance.”
Marcus arrived with a laptop and a face that looked disappointed by most of humanity.
Within two hours, he traced the loan application to a company called Hale Strategic Partners.
Gregory owned it.
At least, he appeared to.
The company had no employees, no office, and no legitimate revenue.
Yet it had submitted proposals to purchase distressed apartment buildings.
“He planned to use your condo as collateral,” Marcus said.
“Without telling me.”
“Yes.”
“What if the application had been approved?”
“You would have discovered the lien after closing or default.”
Helen folded her arms.
“Unless he intended you not to be in control of your affairs by then.”
The attempted slap felt suddenly small.
Not unimportant.
Small compared with planning that had begun long before it.
We reviewed Gregory’s history.
He told me he worked as a regional consultant for a commercial development firm.
The firm confirmed he had been dismissed eight months earlier.
He continued dressing for work every morning.
Continued talking about clients.
Continued receiving what he called performance bonuses.
The bonuses came from short-term loans.
Credit cards.
Cash advances.
And deposits from two women.
One was named Kendra Mills.
The other was Patricia Cole.
Both had married Gregory.
I stared at the marriage records.
“That’s impossible.”
Helen turned the screen toward me.
Gregory married Kendra nine years earlier in Nevada.
No divorce record existed.
He married Patricia four years later in Arizona.
Again, no divorce.
Then he married me.
My marriage was not only abusive.
It might not even be legal.
“Bigamy?” I whispered.
“Potentially,” Helen said. “But we need certified records and identity confirmation.”
“He used his real name.”
“Arrogance often resembles carelessness.”
Marcus searched property records.
Kendra had owned a small house before marrying Gregory.
Three months after the wedding, she transferred half ownership to him.
A year later, the property was sold.
Kendra disappeared from financial records soon afterward.
Patricia owned a catering company and a duplex.
Both were transferred into a trust controlled by Gregory’s mother, Lorraine Hale.
Gregory had told me his mother lived overseas.
She actually lived forty minutes away.
He had kept me from meeting her by claiming they were estranged.
The lie began unraveling in every direction.
Helen contacted state investigators.
I wanted to confront Gregory immediately.
She stopped me.
“Men who build multiple identities do not react well when they lose control.”
“He already knows I found something.”
“He knows you caught one attempt.”
“He tried to access every account.”
“Because he wants to know how much you discovered.”
At four that afternoon, Gregory called.
I put him on speaker while Helen recorded.
“Eliza, we need to talk.”
“You attempted to access my accounts.”
“I was checking whether you had locked me out.”
“You never had access.”
“We’re married.”
“Are we?”
Silence.
Helen looked at me sharply.
Gregory recovered.
“What does that mean?”
“How is Kendra?”
His breathing changed.
Then he laughed.
“I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“Patricia?”
Another pause.
“You’re confused.”
“I have marriage records.”
“Internet records are unreliable.”
“They came from county clerks.”
His voice lowered.
“You have no idea what you’re getting into.”
“Then explain.”
“Kendra was a paperwork error.”
“A marriage is a paperwork error?”
“We annulled it.”
“There is no annulment record.”
“She handled it.”
“And Patricia?”
“Another misunderstanding.”
“Do you misunderstand every woman with property?”
The line went quiet.
When Gregory spoke again, the charm was gone.
“Listen carefully. You will stop digging.”
“No.”
“You will withdraw the police report.”
“No.”
“You will tell the bank the loan application was authorized.”
“No.”
His voice became soft.
“That condo can burn.”
Helen immediately wrote something on a notepad.
Threat.
I kept him talking.
“Is that what happened to Kendra’s house?”
The line disconnected.
That evening, police increased patrols near my building.
At midnight, smoke entered the hallway.
Someone had set fire to a storage closet on the ground floor.
The sprinkler system contained it.
Security cameras captured a hooded figure entering through the garage.
The figure used Gregory’s access card.
He had not burned my condo.
He had sent a message.
But the fire produced something he had not anticipated.
Police arrested him less than two miles away with gasoline residue on his shoes and my building access card inside his jacket.
His first major scheme ended because he kept the evidence in his pocket.
May you like
His second was about to end because one of his former wives finally answered the phone.
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