Chapter 12 - THE LETTER WITH TWO VERSIONS
The original letter was awkward and sad. Emma wrote that her father sometimes came home tired, that he raised his voice once when Noah nearly touched a hot stove, and that he apologized afterward. Amanda's edited version, found in the office files, transformed those sentences into claims of fear and threats.
“They changed 'he told Noah to stop' into 'he threatened Noah,'” Emma said.
Rebecca studied the drafts. “The originals matter because we can show how the story was manufactured.”
Emma took a shaky breath. “Will I have to talk about this in court?”
“Maybe, with safeguards,” Rebecca answered. “But you don't have to decide today. Your job is school, your friends, and being sixteen.”
Emma let out a humorless laugh. “Kind of late for that.”
They arranged trauma-informed counseling for the children and talked with Lily's pediatrician about nightmares and sudden changes in behavior. Daniel resisted the urge to ask Lily more questions about what had happened; the child specialist had warned that repeated questioning could make things harder for her.
That evening the bank examiner confirmed something useful. The fraudulent credit lines had followed a pattern: small transactions to make accounts look ordinary, then larger advances routed through Voss's company.
“Can you recover them?” Daniel asked.
“Some. Others may take months of disputes and court orders.”
Then Rebecca received a new document from the civil investigation: an insurance application on Daniel's life, submitted electronically three months earlier. He hadn't known it existed.
The beneficiary field had been changed from a family trust to a company he'd never heard of.
Rebecca read the name aloud: “Northstar Family Holdings.”
Leah, on speakerphone, answered immediately.
May you like
“That's Cody's company. And Amanda promised him it would belong to both of them.”
