Chapter 3 - PAULA’S COMPANY
Peachtree Meridian Holdings had existed for eleven months.
No office.
No employees.
Registered using a commercial mailbox.
Manager:
Paula Bennett.
But the company’s bank records eventually showed more complexity.
Paula was not acting alone.
Mark had transferred $22,000 into the account over six months.
Where did he get $22,000 while telling me he was barely earning anything?
Some came from consulting income.
Some from cash advances.
And some from our joint account disguised as household transfers.
Amounts small enough that I had missed the pattern.
$1,250.
$1,800.
$900.
$2,100.
Never enough individually to cause panic.
Together:
$14,600.
Then Teresa appeared.
She had deposited $7,500.
Not stolen from me.
Her own money.
Why?
Because Peachtree Meridian was supposed to become the family’s real-estate investment vehicle.
At least that was how Mark later described it.
A company that would buy distressed properties.
Renovate.
Rent.
Build wealth.
Nothing inherently wrong with that.
Except their starting capital was apparently going to include $385,000 extracted from my house without my informed consent.
That transformed “family business” into something else.
Their messages made intention clearer.
Teresa:
Catherine is too cautious. She’ll never agree.
Mark:
Exactly. She thinks because she bought before me she gets final say.
Paula:
She does until she signs.
Then:
So we make sure she signs.
Except I didn’t.
They solved that problem by producing something that looked like I had.
Paula later claimed she believed Mark had permission.
The message history complicated that claim.
Still, Simone reminded me:
“Let investigators decide what each person knew.”
That became my rule.
I did not need to assign guilt faster than evidence could.
May you like
I only needed to stop pretending uncertainty meant nothing had happened.
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