Chapter 15 - THE EMPTY ACCOUNT
Three weeks later, the first real accounting arrived under pressure from Amelia's formal demands. It came in a thick binder and read like an inventory of a fire.
The initial $312,600 was there. So were dividends and small interest payments. Then came withdrawals, transfers, and trustee fees I had never authorized.
Blue Aster had received $286,400. Another $19,800 had gone toward overdue payments on Mom's house. Legal and administrative fees swallowed several thousand more. Barely $9,000 remained available.
“I can't believe she used Rose's savings to save her own mortgage,” I said.
Amelia didn't pretend the money could all be recovered quickly. “We can seek a court order to remove her as trustee and pursue the transfers. But a judgment isn't the same as cash.”
A day later, the judge at an initial hearing approved an interim accounting deadline and ordered records preserved. The court did not immediately freeze every personal asset or hand me back the trust. Vanessa's company claimed much of the money had been spent on machines it still owed payments on.
For the first time since the dye attack, I sat in my car and cried until my chest hurt.
Ethan found me there. He didn't tell me to be strong. He opened the passenger door and sat quietly beside me.
“I feel stupid,” I said. “I helped Vanessa so many times. I never thought Mom would take something Rose left me.”
“Trusting family isn't stupidity.”
“I signed birthday cards. I paid for groceries. I kept telling myself they would grow up.”
“You're allowed to grieve them even if they're still alive.”
That night, I opened my mother's latest text. She'd sent a photograph of Rose holding both granddaughters as children.
May you like
Beneath it were seven words.
If you continue this, I'll destroy Ethan too.
