CHAPTER TWENTY
Stacey
“How did you find out?” I asked stiffly, sitting in the living room of Pax and Peyton’s condo. It was luxurious, a triplex overlooking Central Park. But the obvious luxury seemed miles away, I was locked in a dark place, a hell without feeling.
“Stacey,” said Pax slowly. “We put it together piece by piece.”
I took a deep breath.
“Well, what was the first piece?” I asked as calmly as I could manage.
“The missing footage,” said Peyton reasonably. “There was no reason for that footage to be missing, but our IT guys located a back-up stored on a different server.”
“And what was on the back-up?” I asked, my voice slightly unsteady.
“That’s the thing,” said Pax, “it wasn’t what was on it as what wasn’t on it. The footage should have shown a maintenance man walking down the hallway to your room to fix the A/C. But instead, a maintenance worker showed up only seconds after you called, seemingly popping up out of thin air.”
I shook my head, confused.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“There should have been footage of a maintenance worker walking from the elevator to your room. That’s two hundred feet minimum,” said Pax slowly. “Instead, he enters your room from the left side of the camera. He was probably in the room next to yours, which isn’t caught on the security footage.”
I shook my head slowly.
“But that’s hardly conclusive evidence that it’s your dad,” I said.
“Still,” continued Peyton, “he was wearing a baseball cap, which is out of order for most maintenance workers. Only the gardening and landscaping staff wear baseball caps to stay out of the sun, so we couldn’t see his face.”
“Exactly,” I said again, looking at them hard. “Hardly conclusive evidence.”
“But we started putting two and two together,” said Pax slowly. “Our sources pressed the Enquirer about the tape, and finally someone fessed up that they’d bought it from an entity organized in Panama.”
“Panama?” I asked dumbly. “That seems pretty crazy. Why Panama?”
“That’s the thing,” said Peyton grimly. “Here’s where we caught our lucky break. Have you heard about the Panama Papers?” he asked.
Dumbly, I nodded.
“Sure, someone leaked papers from a law firm in Panama that helped rich people do a lot of illegal things like transfer money to secret bank accounts, hide funds,” I said. “Why, what does that have to do with this?”
“Unfortunately, that’s how we figured out it was our dad,” ground out Pax. “The corporate entity that sold the tape to the Enquirer is registered in Panama … to him.”
I was dumbfounded. Gordon was smart enough, savvy enough, to create a fake corporation located in Panama? This was way beyond what I thought possible for a mid-level manager.
“Honey, it gets worse,” said Pax slowly. “The company is registered to Gordon, but it shows your mom as named representative.”
And then my world really collapsed. Virginia said she didn’t know anything about the video, merely that she suspected my stepdad of videotaping me. Instead, it seemed my mom was part of the plot, helping him register a fake company, providing him cover and a means.
And in a sick way, it made sense. Only rich people had the resources to create a web of fictitious corporations, obscuring their identity. And you what? Virginia probably did this all the time. As a career banker, she set up shadow accounts for her clientele all the time, helping them evade taxes, hide assets, commit all sorts of financial crimes. It’d be no trouble to set up a fake Panamanian company for herself … and for Gordon.
Putting my head down, I began breathing deeply, drawing in air through my nose, breathing out through my mouth. My head felt light, the world spinning around me as I struggled for oxygen. How could my mom have betrayed me? The hurt was searing, my heart ripped open as I registered the depth of her lies.
A big hand dropped gently on my back, massaging my spine.
“Stacey, it’ll be all right,” said a deep voice gently. “We’ll find a way.”
“Yes sister,” intoned another masculine voice. “Take it easy for now, because we’ll figure out what’s next ... and how to make them pay.”
And with that, I knew Virginia and Gordon were doomed. Pax and Peyton would make sure of it.