Chapter 6 - Brooke Stops Standing With Her Family
The ownership schedule was exactly where Brooke said it would be.
Rachel would not allow Mara to open the cabinet alone.
Owen, a document technician, Rachel, and Brooke were all present.
The first folder contained the 2019 Foundry House acquisition.
Purchase agreement.
Loan documents.
Corporate resolutions.
Mara recognized her own attorney’s tabbed drafting style immediately.
Near the back sat a document titled:
Separate Property Investment Acknowledgment and Economic Participation Agreement.
Mara remembered signing it.
Barely.
Grant had complained for days that her lawyer was making a family investment unnecessarily complicated.
The agreement did three things.
Mara’s $1.6 million remained her separate property.
Hale Restoration owed the money under a secured note.
And until the principal was repaid, Mara held a forty-two-percent economic participation right in Foundry House.
Not voting control.
Not the power to run the company.
But forty-two percent of the economic value.
Brooke sat down.
“He never told us.”
Vanessa had spent years talking about Foundry House as the Hale siblings’ crown jewel.
Grant let her.
“Maybe he forgot,” Brooke said weakly.
Owen looked at her.
“Grant signed every page.”
The next document was worse.
Two years later Grant refinanced Foundry House.
The lender required updated ownership disclosures.
Mara’s participation right did not appear.
Instead the company represented that Hale Restoration owned one hundred percent of the economic interest.
Mara looked at Rachel.
“Was my agreement terminated?”
“We haven’t found a release.”
“Grant said the investment was repaid.”
Owen shook his head.
“Because he wanted everyone to think the same thing.”
Brooke looked physically ill.
“I signed the refinance certification.”
Mara turned.
“Why?”
“Grant gave me a payoff schedule.”
“Did you verify it?”
Brooke’s silence answered.
Vanessa called while they were still in the basement.
Brooke stared at her phone.
Then declined the call.
It rang again.
She declined it again.
Mara watched a family alliance break in real time.
Not cleanly.
Not nobly.
Brooke was not suddenly on Mara’s side.
She was finally afraid of what staying on Grant’s side might cost.
Rachel collected the documents for imaging.
On the way upstairs Brooke stopped beside Mara’s wheelchair.
“There’s something else.”
Mara waited.
“The Foundry House sale.”
“What about it?”
“It isn’t months away.”
Brooke swallowed.
“It’s next Thursday.”
Mara stared at her.
Eleven days.
“For how much?”
Brooke gave her the number.
Twelve million dollars.
Mara’s forty-two-percent participation right, if still valid, was worth enough to change the entire divorce.
Enough to explain why Grant wanted a signature now.
Enough to explain why Vanessa wanted Mara out of the house before anyone opened the basement.
May you like
But one question remained.
If Grant had never repaid Mara, where had the supposed payoff money gone?
