my brain sought for an alternate answer, I knew there was only one. This ticket was not for me.
My breathing became shallow. I felt dizzy. Panic clutched my stomach. My mind spun toward thoughts of medication, but I’d given my pills to Willow. And on some deep-down survival level I knew I needed every ounce of clarity to deal with this. Understand it. Comprehend and process this.
Hurriedly I flipped through the other papers . . . I stalled.
He’s mortgaged this house?
To the max. Blood drained from my head. I—we—had paid outright for it. What had he done with the money he’d borrowed on it? We’d closed the sale at $4.56 million. I’d put the money up for it, but we’d purchased the property in our company name. Yet according to these papers, he’d taken out a mortgage on the house in his personal capacity? I read the document more closely—as closely as I could, given that my vision wasn’t registering the details.
The new mortgage agreement included insurance. On my life.
A sick cold leaked into my gut. I glanced up and stared out the window. I didn’t want to think what this could mean.
A crack sounded in the living room.
I froze. Listened.
But nothing more came.
It was probably another branch cracking off one of the gums outside—I’d left the sliding glass door open due to the heat. When the weather got too dry, the gums shed branches as a means of survival. The trees were called widow-makers, I’d learned, because they so often killed people with the sudden dropping of massive limbs.
I glanced over my shoulder through the office door into the living room. I could see the clock. It was almost 3:00 p.m. I had no reason to fear Martin would suddenly walk in. He wasn’t due back for at least another nine days.
Focus.
I returned my attention to the papers and opened a manila envelope with the word CONFIDENTIAL marked on it. Inside was a consultants’ report. Commissioned by Agnes Holdings. It was not the report Martin had shown me. I scanned the summary, my heart beating faster and faster with each sentence. This report had determined that digging canals into the mangrove swamp would lead to acid sulphate in the soil, which would create acid problems in the groundwater, which in turn would mobilize arsenic in the soil and result in massive habitat destruction. Fish—all sorts of marine life—would die on an epic scale. An example of similar destruction in another development was cited. Limestone walls in the channels would be required to neutralize the acid. The cost of the development would skyrocket. I flipped the pages. Words blurred. Habitat destruction . . . population of fish eagles decimated . . . environmental impact . . . yellow-bellied gliders . . . frogs . . .
I sat back, breathing hard. The development was dead if this report got out. But Martin had quashed it, hidden it. He’d commissioned a second, newer report—the one he’d shown me had downplayed any potential problems. If the shire council had seen this, or the prospective buyers had known, those presales would have dried up completely. We could be legally liable. This was fraud. I lurched to my feet, paced, then dragged my hands over my hair. What was Martin doing? Was he going to get on a plane and run? Leave me holding the bag? Had he ever intended actually going through with constructing this project? Or had it just been a way to fleece buyers out of deposits—the proverbial swampland-in-Florida scam?
No. That couldn’t be.
I sat myself at his desk and powered up his desktop. His computer was password protected, but I’d watched carefully when he’d shown me what now appeared to be fake spreadsheets. The monitor flared to life and I typed in the password I remembered seeing him use. It failed. Because I was nervous. I’d missed uppercasing a letter. I tried again.
The system booted up.
My heart thudded as I accessed our online banking accounts—Martin had the sites bookmarked, and his computer remembered the access code. A security question came up.
“What town were you married in?”
I typed “Las Vegas.”
It denied access.
I typed “Vegas.”
It failed.
My hands hovered over the keyboard. I had one more attempt. If I failed again the site might lock me out. I frowned. Then opted to ask for another question instead.
“Where was your father born?”
I typed “Melbourne.”
The banking accounts opened. Sweat pearled and dribbled down my stomach. The fan ruffled my hair. I could not believe what I was