## Part 7: The Arizona Warehouse
Rosa's nephew works for a title company in Albuquerque, and through him I got the name of a lawyer in Santa Fe who handles art and fraud cases: Elena Vasquez, a woman in her fifties with a reputation for being polite in the courtroom and absolutely relentless outside of it. I called her office on a Thursday morning, and by Thursday afternoon I was sitting in her office with my folder, my photographs, and my shaking hands folded in my lap so she would not see them shake.
Elena listened to the whole story without interrupting once. She took notes in a neat, fast hand. When I finished, she looked up and said, "Mrs. Calloway, you have a strong case, but you also have a problem. Your daughter is going to say you gave her permission. She is going to say you are confused, or forgetful, or that you agreed to all of this and changed your mind. We need proof that is not just your word against hers."
"Harold Finch will speak," I said. "And Rosa. And I have the photographs, and the bank statements, and the forged papers."
"Good," Elena said. "But we need more. We need to find where the money went, and who else is involved. I am going to hire a private investigator, with your permission. His name is Sam Whitfield. He used to work for the state attorney general's office. He is discreet, and he is very good at following money."
I agreed, even though the investigator's fee made my stomach tighten. Elena said she would work on a plan where her fees could be recovered from the people who stole from me, if we won. She also told me to do three things immediately: freeze my credit with all three bureaus, file a report with the local police about the forged signatures, and stop talking to Candace and Trent about the case. "From now on," she said, "they hear from me, not from you."
The police report was harder than I expected. The young officer at the Taos station was polite, but he kept asking if I was sure, if this could be a family misunderstanding, if maybe I had signed something and forgotten. I showed him the forged sheets, the bank statements, the HELOC paper. He took the report, but I could see the doubt in his eyes, the same doubt Candace was counting on.
Sam Whitfield called me two days later. He had a voice like gravel and a way of talking that made you feel he had already seen the worst of people and was not surprised by any of it. "Mrs. Calloway," he said, "Canyon Light Holdings LLC is registered in Arizona, with a mailing address at a warehouse outside Scottsdale. The registered agent is a man named Ray Calloway."
Ray Calloway. My late husband's younger brother. My brother-in-law. The man who had sat at my kitchen table after Thomas died and said, "June, don't worry about the paperwork. I'll help you with the estate." The man who had helped me file Thomas's will, who knew where all my accounts were, who had once asked me, casually, if I had ever thought about "monetizing" my paintings properly.
Sam went on. "Ray is listed as a member of the LLC, along with Trent Delacroix and a third person whose name is hidden behind a second company. The warehouse is leased in the LLC's name. And Mrs. Calloway — the warehouse has a loading dock, climate control, and a very good security system. It looks like a storage facility for art."
I sat down slowly. Ray had been at our Thanksgiving table. Ray had held my hand at Thomas's funeral. Ray had told me, just last Christmas, that he was proud of how hard I worked. And all the while, he had been the secret partner, the bigger person Candace had warned me about, the man who gave Trent and Candace the cover of a real company and the knowledge of my finances.
Sam said, "I can get photographs of the warehouse, and I can track the LLC's bank accounts, but I need a little time. And Mrs. Calloway, I need you to be careful. These people have already shown they will forge your name. Don't sign anything new. Don't let anyone into your studio."
That night, I painted for the first time in weeks. Not a painting for sale, not a painting for a show. I painted the pale rectangle on my bedroom wall, the ghost of my husband's portrait, in shades of gray and gold. And while I painted, I thought about Ray, and about how the people who hurt you the most are rarely strangers. They are the people who know exactly where you keep your keys.
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