Chapter 5 - THE PROJECT CLAIRE CALLED HER OWN
Claire requested mediation before answering further discovery.
Liam agreed because the marital agreement required a good-faith attempt at private resolution.
They met in Denver with both legal teams.
Evelyn attended as Liam’s financial and corporate counsel. Claire brought Rachel and a criminal-defense attorney named Samuel Price.
The addition of criminal counsel changed the room.
Claire wore a dark blue suit. Her diamond earrings were gone.
“The folder name was stupid,” she said.
“Was it yours?” Samuel asked.
“Yes.”
“Did you create it?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ask Dylan to copy guest files?”
Claire looked toward Liam.
“I asked for market information.”
“That isn’t what he copied.”
“I didn’t know the system contained personal notes.”
“You named the folder ‘guest leverage,’” Evelyn said.
“Because Redstone wanted proof that Alder Peak’s customer base could support another lodge.”
Liam leaned forward.
“You gave a competing bidder private information to finance Summit Basin?”
“I gave Andrew and Redstone a market picture.”
“You gave them people’s travel schedules.”
“I didn’t read every file.”
“You didn’t need to. You knew they weren’t yours.”
Claire’s fingers tightened around a bottle of water.
“You built Northline while I followed you from city to city. Every dinner became a conversation about your deals. Every person I met asked what Liam thought, what Liam owned, what Liam planned next.”
“So you used joint credit and stolen resort data.”
“I built something.”
“You hid it.”
“Because the last time I showed you an idea, you called it another Andrew disaster.”
“The restaurant group lost four hundred ten thousand dollars.”
“That was Andrew’s failure, not mine.”
“You signed the checks.”
Rachel interrupted before the argument consumed the mediation.
“The question today is whether financial resolution is possible.”
Claire proposed transferring her beneficial interest in Summit Basin to Liam. In exchange, he would pay the joint home-equity line, release claims against her fixed settlement, and ask the resort not to pursue Dylan.
Evelyn answered carefully.
“Liam cannot bargain away an independent employment investigation or prevent law enforcement from reviewing evidence.”
“He owns the resort,” Claire said.
“That is exactly why he should not interfere.”
The first major truth was now clear.
The $286,000 had not financed a romantic escape.
Claire had used Dylan as an insider and conduit to build a competing lodge she secretly controlled.
The affair grew inside that arrangement, but it was not the original purpose of the money.
A more dangerous question remained.
Why had Claire created a public hot-tub scene at the very resort whose data she had taken?
She claimed she had been drinking and wanted to hurt Liam.
Dylan’s messages suggested planning.
Three days before the trip, Claire wrote:
Make sure the outside camera catches everything.
Dylan replied:
How far do you want me to go?
Far enough that he stops acting like nothing reaches him.
The messages did not specify whether the objective was emotional pain, a divorce advantage, or something else.
The court-approved discovery into Summit Basin’s ownership produced another document.
Claire was not a passive beneficial investor.
She held a contractual option to acquire seventy percent of the company for one dollar after its construction financing closed.
Andrew’s public ownership was temporary.
When confronted, Andrew admitted the structure had been Claire’s idea.
“She said no bank would finance the project if Liam’s lawyers saw her name,” he said.
“Did she tell you where the $286,000 came from?” Evelyn asked.
“She said it was her marital distribution in advance.”
“There had been no distribution.”
Andrew looked down.
“I know that now.”
Attached to the option was a projected refinancing schedule.
Summit Basin needed another $1.4 million by January or the land option would expire.
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At the bottom, Claire had written the expected source.
ACCELERATED MARITAL SETTLEMENT—AFTER VAIL.
