The Iron Ledger

The granite steps of the New York County Supreme Court building on Centre Street were slick with freezing drizzle.

Eleanor Vance stood waiting near the metal detectors, holding two steaming paper cups of black coffee. She wore a sharp navy overcoat and an expression that promised total destruction.

"You have the wire trace?" she asked, handing me a cup.

"I have the federal wire reference number, the bank routing details, and the memo line written by Brooks Montgomery himself," I replied.

"Then Harrison Cole is about to have the worst morning of his legal career," Eleanor said with a predatory grin. "Let’s go."

Part 18 was on the fourth floor. When the elevator doors opened, I saw them immediately.

Sitting on the wooden benches outside Courtroom 412 were Judy, Brooks, and Paige.

Judy looked significantly less polished than she had the night before. Her coat was wrinkled, her silver hair sat flat against one side of her head from sleeping in a suburban New Jersey hotel, and dark circles bruised the skin beneath her eyes. Brooks was on his phone, pacing furiously, his voice hushed but harsh as he argued with an unseen contractor. Paige sat beside Judy, chewing on a fingernail, glaring at the linoleum floor.

And sitting at the end of the bench, looking completely out of place in an ill-fitting polyester suit from a discount department store, was Greg.

He looked older, thinner, his face weathered by cheap beer and Ohio winters. When he saw me step off the elevator, his eyes dropped immediately to the floor. He didn't have the courage to look at the woman he had abandoned with a three-week-old baby and an unpaid mortgage.

"Tasha!" Judy gasped, stumbling to her feet as I approached. "Tasha, listen to me! We don't have to do this! You can stop this right now!"

I didn't break stride. I walked right past her, my heels clicking sharply against the marble.

"Tasha, look at your sister!" Judy hissed, grabbing for my elbow. Eleanor stepped smoothly between us, her briefcase positioned like a shield.

"Do not touch my client, Mrs. Vance," Eleanor said, her voice cutting through the corridor like a scalpel. "If your fingers graze her coat, I will have the court officers take you into custody for battery before the docket is called."

Brooks hung up his phone and stepped forward, puffing out his chest. "Listen to me, counselor. We’re prepared to withdraw the emergency application today—*if* Tasha signs an occupancy agreement for PH-3 and vacates the lis pendens on Bethlehem. We can settle this as a family."

I stopped and looked Brooks dead in the eye.

"You took three hundred thousand dollars of my parents' home equity to buy yourself an executive estate, Brooks," I said, my voice completely level. "Then you wired thirty-five thousand dollars of that money to Harrison Cole to file a fraudulent custody petition using a deadbeat who hasn't paid a penny to feed his children in seventy-two months."

Brooks’s face drained of color. The arrogant sneer vanished. "You... how do you have that banking record?"

"I’m an insurance fraud investigator, Brooks," I said quietly. "Did you really think I wouldn't trace a wire with your name on it?"

Before he could answer, the double doors of Courtroom 412 swung open.