Chapter 12 - The Cost of Believing
The company had no office.
No staff.
No meaningful record of providing the consulting services listed on its invoices.
It had a rented mailing address, a bank account, and Eleanor’s signature on the formation papers.
The accountant laid the findings out carefully.
Forty-eight thousand dollars from Lily’s education account.
Additional payments from our household funds.
Several false reimbursement requests routed through my business, small enough that each had escaped my attention.
Owen had already started reviewing them.
Some money remained traceable.
Some was gone.
“Will Lily get it back?” I asked.
“We’ll pursue recovery,” Mara said. “But don’t make her well-being depend on a number in a case.”
I knew she was right.
I still hated every dollar.
Not because it was mine.
Because Eleanor had taken money meant for my daughter’s future while telling her she didn’t deserve dinner.
Ruiz interviewed me again.
This time, I brought my own failures without waiting to be asked.
The forms I had signed.
The teacher’s message I had let Eleanor answer.
The day Lily asked to come to work with me and I told her she would have more fun at home.
Ruiz listened.
“You can’t change those moments,” she said.
“I know.”
“You can tell the truth about them.”
That evening, Lily asked if we could go home.
I looked at Beth.
“Do you want to?” I asked.
“Is she there?”
“No.”
“Can she come back?”
“There are rules now that say she can’t. And I have a plan if she tries.”
Lily considered that.
I had stopped making promises big enough to collapse.
“Can the closet stay open?”
“Yes.”
At home, she stood in the foyer for a long time.
The mop was gone.
So was the hook on the closet door, removed after it had been documented.
Lily walked over and touched the wood.
Then she turned.
“Can we take the whole door off?”
I fetched a screwdriver.
We left the empty hinges in place until I could patch them.
That night, she slept in her own room with the hall light on.
At 2:13 a.m., my phone lit up.
May you like
A message from an unknown number.
You found one account. You still don’t know what he helped me do.
