Chapter 6 - The Account With Two OwnersBy Monday afternoon, the story had grown beyond anything I could have imagined when Iván threw that cup of coffee.
My lawyer had contacted the bank's fraud department.
The police had added the threatening messages to the assault file and referred the suspicious financial activity for further examination.
The solicitor had formally documented the release of my mother's letter and the flash drive.
And I had learned that the company allegedly borrowing money in my name had been connected to at least two other businesses.
Neither of those businesses had ever appeared in my household records.
Yet both had received transfers from accounts linked to BV Financial Services.
The first was Northbridge Trading.
The second was a company called Meridian Asset Group.
The name sounded respectable, which was apparently the point.
Its public records described it as a consultancy specializing in vehicle inventory, commercial financing, and asset management.
According to the initial records Camila obtained, Meridian had been registered shortly after Iván began complaining about the car lot's financial difficulties.
Its directors included a man named Sergio Ruiz.
And a woman named Brenda Martínez.
I read the names twice.
“Brenda is a director?”
“According to the company registration records we have so far,” Camila said. “We still need to establish what role she actually played and whether the records are accurate.”
“Why would she need my bank card if she already owned part of a company?”
Camila didn't answer immediately.
“Because people asking for money are not always asking for the money they claim to need.”
I thought about Brenda arriving at my apartment with two empty suitcases.
She had not asked whether I was recovering from the burns.
She had not asked whether I needed anything.
She had come prepared to carry away my belongings.
I should have recognized that the financial demand was only one piece of a larger plan.
That afternoon, the bank gave Camila access to an initial transaction summary.
The missing eighty-six thousand euros had been divided into five transfers.
Four had gone to BV Financial Services.
The fifth had gone to Brenda.
But BV Financial Services had not retained the money.
The funds had been distributed through a series of subsequent transfers, including payments to Meridian Asset Group and Northbridge Trading.
Several smaller withdrawals were marked as cash advances.
The records did not establish who had personally received each amount, and the bank cautioned that the full transaction history was still being reconstructed.
Still, the route was unmistakable.
My savings had entered an account associated with a company carrying my name.
Then the money had moved elsewhere.
Someone had created a path that appeared to begin with me and end with people Iván knew.
Camila arranged a meeting with a financial investigator who worked with businesses and fraud claims.
His name was Gabriel Ortega.
He arrived carrying a laptop, a stack of printed statements, and a notebook covered in colored tabs.
He listened while I described my job, my savings, the refinancing papers, and the transactions I had never authorized.
Then he asked a question that made my stomach tighten.
“Did your husband ever use your accounting credentials or professional email address to prepare business reports?”
“No. He knew I kept those accounts separate.”
“Did he ever ask you to review financial statements for his employer?”
“Sometimes. He'd show me totals and ask whether they made sense. But I never prepared reports for the car lot.”
Gabriel wrote something down.
“Your experience may have made you a convenient name to use. An accountant's signature or involvement can make a transaction appear more credible. But I want to be clear that we cannot yet say how the documents were prepared or who submitted them.”
He opened a spreadsheet.
The first column listed the dates of the transfers.
The second showed the amounts.
The third contained notes connecting each payment to a supporting record.
Several transactions had no supporting invoice.
Others referenced invoices carrying duplicate numbers.
One payment had been described as a reimbursement for consulting services.
The beneficiary was Meridian Asset Group.
The amount was thirty-two thousand euros.
I studied the date.
It had been transferred three weeks before my mother's death.
“That money didn't go to me,” I said.
Gabriel nodded.
“Your personal statements show no corresponding deposit. We need the receiving account records to establish the next stage of the transfer.”
He enlarged the transaction details.
The payment had been authorized through a business banking portal.
The user identifier was not mine.
It was registered to an account manager named I. Moreno.
Iván Moreno.
I felt a terrible mixture of relief and anger.
Relief because there was evidence that someone else had initiated the transaction.
Anger because the money had passed through a company associated with my name, and I knew how easily that could become a weapon against me.
Gabriel leaned back.
“Have you ever heard of a company called Vega Consulting?”
I stared at him.
“No.”
He turned the laptop toward me.
Vega Consulting had been established eight months earlier.
The registered office was a small commercial address in a building near the used-car lot.
Its listed director was Alejandra María Vega.
My name.
My identification number.
My date of birth.
My signature.
I felt sick.
“I never created that company.”
Gabriel examined the records.
“Then we need to determine how the registration occurred. The information suggests someone had access to your personal data, but it does not tell us precisely how that access was obtained.”
Camila took a copy of the registration.
“Was the company used to receive money?”
“According to the records currently available, yes. At least three payments came in from Meridian Asset Group. Two were transferred onward within twenty-four hours.”
“To whom?”
Gabriel pointed to the recipient field.
BV Financial Services.
The company Iván had used to borrow two hundred and forty thousand euros in my name.
I covered my mouth.
He had not created one false business.
He had created a chain.
One company supposedly belonging to me sent money to another company supposedly connected to me, which passed funds into an account that listed me as a guarantor.
If the loan defaulted, creditors might begin by pursuing the woman whose name appeared on the paperwork.
The same woman whose savings had disappeared.
The same woman whose husband had just told the police that she had burned herself.
I looked at Camila.
“How many companies?”
Gabriel consulted his records.
“We have identified three entities connected through the transactions. There may be additional ones. I don't want to overstate what we know until we obtain the full records.”
The number three was enough.
I felt as though I had discovered a second life running beneath the one I had lived.
A hidden economy built from my name, my savings, and my trust.
Then Gabriel clicked on a new document.
It was a filing related to Meridian Asset Group.
The company's ownership structure had changed two months earlier.
Brenda's name had been removed from one role and reappeared in another.
A second document showed that she had received a payment shortly afterward.
The amount was forty thousand euros.
I looked at the date.
It was the same week Brenda had begged me for money to cover her rent.
“She told me she was about to be evicted,” I said.
Gabriel studied the entries.
“The payment may or may not be related to her personal finances, but the timing is notable.”
I remembered Brenda crying on my sofa, talking about overdue bills.
She had insisted she needed help immediately.
I had offered to pay her landlord directly.
She refused.
She wanted my bank card.
Now I understood why.
She had not needed access to my money because she was broke.
She may have wanted access because she already knew where the money came from.
Camila closed the folder.
“We have to preserve these records and let the investigation determine each person's role. We shouldn't contact Brenda ourselves.”
I nodded.
But a message arrived before we could end the meeting.
It came from Brenda's number.
For once, it wasn't an insult or a demand.
It was a photograph.
The image showed my mother's black notebook lying open on a wooden desk.
Beside it was a silver key I recognized immediately.
The key to the locked compartment beneath my desk.
Under the photograph, Brenda had written:
Iván thinks you found everything. You haven't.
A second message appeared.
Meet me alone tonight if you want to know why your mother was really afraid of him.
Camila read the messages over my shoulder.
“No,” she said immediately.
I looked at her.
“I haven't agreed to meet her.”
“You don't need to. We can preserve the messages and discuss safe ways to arrange any contact through the proper channels.”
I stared at the photograph.
Brenda had the notebook.
And if she had the notebook, someone had either given it to her or she had entered my apartment while I was gone.
The officers had not yet completed their examination of the property, and I had no intention of returning alone.
But the photograph contained something else.
A reflection on the polished desk surface.
A partial image of the person holding the phone.
I enlarged it.
A woman's hand.
A gold bracelet.
And on the finger beside the little one, a distinctive silver ring.
I knew that ring.
I had bought it for Brenda's twenty-fifth birthday.
I looked at the photograph once more.
Then I realized the notebook in her possession was not the only thing she had taken.
The ring she wore was the ring she had stolen from my jewelry box the night Iván threw the coffee at me.
May you like
She had been inside my apartment again.
And she had left with evidence my mother had spent months collecting.
Related Stories
