Chapter 12 - Mason Reed Falls
Mason was arrested on a Thursday morning.
Not for everything.
Not yet.
Investigators moved first on allegations involving forged financial documents and unlawful transfers where evidence was strongest.
Bridget called me before sunrise.
I answered because part of me still remembered the woman who once stood beside me at my mother’s funeral.
Her voice broke immediately.
“They took him.”
“I heard.”
“You did this.”
“No.”
“Don’t.”
She was crying now.
“Don’t pretend you didn’t.”
“I gave investigators recordings of what Mason said to me.”
“You destroyed our family.”
I looked around my hotel room.
The same sports bag sat near the wall.
I still had not bought many new clothes.
“You came into my house with trash bags.”
Bridget went silent.
“You threatened me with debt created using forged signatures.”
“I didn’t know.”
“That may be true.”
“Mason told me it was legal.”
“That may also be true.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“I don’t know what to believe about you anymore.”
Her breathing became uneven.
Then she whispered, “I have two children.”
That stopped me.
Bridget’s children were fourteen and eleven.
They had nothing to do with any of this.
“What do you need?”
She sounded surprised.
“Our accounts are frozen.”
“Call Nathan.”
“What?”
“He can connect your attorney with someone who can petition for ordinary living expenses.”
“You’d do that?”
“For the children.”
Bridget began crying harder.
I closed my eyes.
Compassion did not erase accountability.
That was something Gavin never understood.
He believed forgiveness meant avoiding consequences.
It did not.
Two hours later, Charlotte surrendered through an attorney.
The missing laptop came with her.
Its contents were devastating.
Spreadsheets.
Transfer schedules.
Emails.
Scanned signatures.
Lists of entities.
Private messages between Charlotte and Mason.
One message had been sent three weeks before my divorce.
SABRINA CANNOT STILL BE IN THE PICTURE WHEN CRESTVIEW CLOSES.
Charlotte responded.
GAVIN WILL HANDLE HER.
Mason replied.
MAKE SURE HE DOES.
I read the exchange twice.
Then a third time.
My hands started shaking.
Rachel quietly removed the printout from in front of me.
“You don’t need to keep reading.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Sabrina.”
“I need to know.”
She returned it.
Another message came four days later.
Charlotte wrote.
HE STILL HASN’T FILED.
Mason answered.
THEN GIVE HIM A REASON TO HATE HER.
The scratches appeared on Charlotte’s car the following week.
At that point, investigators traced them to security footage outside a restaurant in St. Paul.
Charlotte had scraped the vehicle against a concrete column herself.
She knew exactly when the damage occurred.
The accusation against me had been manufactured from beginning to end.
For the first time since leaving Gavin, I allowed myself to cry.
Not because Charlotte had lied.
May you like
Not because Mason had planned it.
Because Gavin had made their plan so easy.
