“Along with the altered power of attorney papers he kept in his study.

He thinks he’s playing both of us, Lauren.”

Two hours later, at eleven thirty in the morning, I stood in the records room on the fourteenth floor of Whitmore Capital on Madison Avenue.

The small, windowless room smelled of heavy paper folders, cardboard storage boxes, and stale toner, completely cut off from the carpeted executive suites downstairs.

An independent forensic auditor named Marcus Vance sat at a metal table in a green visor and a crisp white shirt.

He didn’t look up when the heavy oak door clicked shut behind me.