Chapter 6 - The Paper Trail of Greed
The following morning, Detective Laura Hayes met me in the hospital lobby with a thick folder.
“Mr. Ferris, we’ve executed a full forensic financial audit on the records found in your mother’s room, as well as her Maryland bank accounts,” Detective Hayes stated, sitting down across from me with two cups of black coffee.
“What else did she do?” I asked, my knuckles white as I gripped my coffee cup.
“Over the last twelve months, your mother managed to open three fraudulent credit lines in your wife’s name using the social security cards she stole from the locked drawer,” Detective Hayes explained, spreading out financial statements across the table. “She ran up over $85,000 in personal debt under Jessica’s identity—purchasing high-end clothing, spa memberships, and wiring money to an offshore account in the Bahamas.”
I stared at the numbers in sheer disbelief. “She was trying to bankrupt us while poisoning my wife.”
“It’s a classic cover strategy,” Hayes noted grimly. “If she ruined Jessica’s mental health and financial standing completely, she could convince you to commit Jessica to an institution and take total control over your life, your home, and your estate. She viewed Jessica as an obstacle to your wealth.”
Suddenly, my phone began vibrating frantically on the table. The screen lit up with calls from Baltimore—my mother’s sister, Aunt Beatrice, and my cousins.
I picked up the call and put it on speaker.
“Zayden!” Aunt Beatrice’s sharp, shrill voice shrieked through the speaker. “Have you lost your absolute mind?! Your mother is sitting in a cold jail cell in Phoenix! She called us crying! How could you put your own mother behind bars over a ridiculous family argument?!”
“A family argument?” I asked, my voice dangerously steady. “Beatrice, she poisoned my wife with controlled sedatives for months. She burned my five-year-old daughter’s hands under scalding water and starved them both.”
“Oh, don't be so dramatic!” Beatrice scoffed coldly. “Carmen told us everything! Jessica is an incompetent housewife who couldn't handle a simple dinner party, so Carmen had to step in! Children need tough love! You drop those police charges right now, Zayden, or this entire family will disown you!”
I listened to her toxic, enabling words, realizing for the first time that the rot didn't start with Carmen—it was built into the very fabric of the family environment I had grown up in.
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“Disown me?” I chuckled bitterly into the microphone. “Beatrice, listen to me very carefully. If any of you ever attempt to contact me, my wife, or my daughter again, I will have Detective Hayes add you to the conspiracy investigation. Do not call me again.”
I hung up the phone, immediately opened my settings, and blocked every single relative from my mother’s side of the family.
