I did not tell her yet that my mother had accessed my old laptop using a saved password. CID had already traced the logins. Every lie had already been preserved.
At dawn, I returned to the house with my phone recording from my breast pocket. Richard was in the study, making calls about an emergency board meeting. Evelyn had stuffed Claire’s belongings into garbage bags.
“You should be at the hospital,” she said.
“You should explain why my deployment account is missing four hundred and eighty thousand dollars.”
Her face tightened. Father entered the room, still wearing confidence like armor. Parenting
“That money was invested,” he said. “You’ll thank me when you understand business.”
“You transferred it to Blackthorn Holdings.”
His smile flickered. Blackthorn was a shell company registered under his accountant’s brother.
“You’ve been snooping.”
“I’ve been auditing.”
