Chapter 3 - Secrets in the Ledger
Two days later, Lily was discharged, and Marcus took us to his apartment—a safe haven far away from the toxic estate. While Lily slept peacefully in Marcus's spare room, surrounded by new stuffed animals he had bought her, Officer Briggs paid us a visit. He dropped a heavy manila folder on the kitchen table.
"We decoded the shredded documents found in that trash bag," Briggs explained. "Your father’s real estate firm has been bankrupt for five years. They survived by embezzling from a trust fund set up by your grandfather. The total amount stolen exceeds four million dollars."
"And the forged custody papers?" I asked, my heart hammering.
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"Your mother hired a corrupt family lawyer to draft them. The plan was to declare you mentally unfit, use the forged papers to claim guardianship of Lily, and liquidate the remaining trust assets before you and Marcus could marry. Once you married Marcus, he would have legal standing as her stepfather to audit the estate. They threw Lily into that dumpster because she caught Vanessa putting the ledgers into the lockbox. In a panic, Vanessa drugged her, and your parents decided to use the opportunity to hide both the evidence and the child until the engagement party guests arrived, planning to pretend Lily had 'run away' during the commotion."
The sheer coldness of their calculation turned my blood to ice. They were willing to let a four-year-old suffocate in a dumpster just to save their social standing and bank accounts.
