That sentence made my stomach drop.
Because I knew exactly what that meant.
Graham wasn’t just dating my sister.
He was setting her up.
The same playbook, different target.
Get close.
Build trust.
Gain access to finances.
And start siphoning.
“Paige,” I said carefully. “Did you give him access to anything? Accounts, passwords, any financial documents?”
She was quiet for a second.
“He had my login to my brokerage account. I gave it to him about a month ago. He said he just wanted to look at my allocations.”
I told her to change every password immediately.
Every single one.
Email, banking, brokerage, everything.
I told her to call her bank and flag her accounts for unusual activity.
And I told her Evan had offered to help if she needed legal guidance.
She did all of it that same day.
Turned out Graham hadn’t made any moves on her accounts yet.
But the fact that he had the access was enough to make all of us sick.
Over the next few weeks, Paige and I talked more than we had in years.
Real conversations.
Not the surface-level holiday catch-up stuff we’ve been doing for the past decade.
She told me she was embarrassed.
Not just about Graham, but about how she’d treated me.
She said she’d spent years looking at me as the underachiever in the family, the one who didn’t quite measure up, and that Thanksgiving had forced her to confront how wrong she’d been.
“You literally caught a fraud that I was sleeping next to,” she said during one of our calls. “And I was laughing at his jokes about your job. I am so sorry, Zach.”
I’m not going to pretend.
That didn’t feel good to hear.
It did.
But more than feeling validated, I felt like I was getting my sister back.
The real Paige.
Not the one who’d been performing alongside some con man in a sport coat.
The holidays passed.
Christmas was quieter than usual, but warmer.
Mom made her pot roast.
Dad fell asleep during the movie.
Evan brought the good bourbon.
And Paige sat next to me on the couch and didn’t say much, but she was there.
Present.
Not performing for anyone.
I thought the story was over.
Graham was gone.
Paige was safe.
The family was healing.
But then, in mid-January, I got a phone call that changed everything again.
It was from a woman named Diane Caldwell.
She introduced herself as an investigative journalist working on a long-form piece about predatory financial advisers targeting clients in the Mid-Atlantic region.
She’d been researching Graham Prescott for months, and she’d heard through a source at the state securities board that my firm had done the original forensic work.
She asked if I’d be willing to talk on the record.
I told her I needed to think about it.
Then I hung up, sat in my truck for about 5 minutes, and called Evan.
“So,” I said, “how do you feel about me going on record against Graham?”
Evan didn’t hesitate.
“I feel like you should absolutely do it, and I’ll make sure you’re protected.”
That’s when I knew this wasn’t just about my family anymore.
Graham was still out there.
Still operating.
Still targeting people.
And I had the receipts.
Chapter 6: Going on the Record
Diane Caldwell was thorough.
I’ll give her that.