Chapter 7 - The Audit Trail
"That's a lie! You're making it all up!" Patricia screamed, her voice rising to a frantic, hysterical pitch as she tried to shield her mother's limp form. "My firm was legitimate! We had major contracts in Manhattan! Eleanor hacked into my system and altered the records to frame me!"
Marcus Sterling didn't raise his voice. He simply reached into his briefcase and pulled out a certified bank affidavit, complete with embossed seals and digital timestamps. He slid the document across the table, stopping it right in front of Thomas’s trembling hands.
"Mrs. Vance, your firm lost its primary commercial lease in 2021," Sterling stated calmly, his eyes fixed on Patricia’s panicked face. "Since then, you haven't generated a single dollar of legitimate revenue. Instead, you opened forty-two shell companies in the Caymans, using your mother’s social security number as the primary guarantor, and systematically drained her retirement accounts to maintain your high-society lifestyle in the city."
Thomas stared down at the affidavit, his mouth moving silently as he read the numbers. The figures weren't thousands of dollars; they were in the millions. Every investment portfolio he thought he owned, every penny of the inheritance his father had left behind, had been systematically converted into digital smoke by his own sister.
"Patricia..." Thomas whispered, turning his head slowly to look down at his sister with a look of pure, unadulterated horror. "Tell me this isn't true. Tell me you didn't steal Mom's retirement money."
"I was going to pay it back!" Patricia sobbed, the polished corporate facade completely dissolving into pathetic, ugly crying as she rocked her mother’s unresponsive shoulder. "The market was supposed to rebound! I just needed one more big investor, and Eleanor ruined everything by going through my briefcase last night!"
"Last night?" Sterling arched an eyebrow. "Mrs. Vance, we didn't need Eleanor to look through your briefcase. The FBI’s financial crimes division flagged your routing numbers three weeks ago. Eleanor simply cooperated with our subpoena to ensure you didn't flee the country with what little was left of her personal savings."
Aunt Linda burst into loud, theatrical tears, burying her face in her hands while rocking back and forth in her chair. "We're ruined! We have nothing! We're sitting here eating turkey while our entire family is going to prison!"
"Nobody is going to prison tonight," a calm, familiar voice said from the doorway.
May you like
Every head snapped toward the entrance. Eleanor stood leaning against the doorframe, having changed out of her red plaid shirt and beige apron into a simple, elegant dark wool coat and winter boots. She held a small canvas duffel bag in her hand, looking entirely composed, refreshed, and entirely divorced from the chaotic wreckage of the dining room.
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