Chapter 7 - The Final Audit
With Ethan locked away and Natalie facing federal charges, the final piece of the puzzle was Victoria. Sarah Jenkins and I spent the next two weeks locked in my home office, tracing the final destination of the four hundred and fifty thousand dollars Ethan had stolen.
"We found it," Sarah said at midnight on a Tuesday, pointing to a flashing red line on the spreadsheet. "Victoria didn't just use it for gambling, Val. She used it to buy a hidden property in Aspen under a fake corporate alias. She was planning to move there and leave you with the debts from Natalie's boutique collapse."
"She wanted an asset to fall back on," I said, a slow smile spreading across my face. "Sarah, forward these records directly to the IRS and the asset forfeiture unit. Let's see how she likes Aspen when the government owns the keys."
May you like
The next morning, federal marshals seized the Aspen property. Victoria was arrested at a local motel, where she had been staying on a maxed-out credit card. She was charged with federal wire fraud and conspiracy to commit grand larceny.
The Vance family empire hadn't just collapsed. It had been systematically dismantled, piece by piece, by the very woman they thought they could shove into a corner.
