Chapter 7: The Motive
The forensic accountants delivered their preliminary findings on the third day.
Over the previous two years, more than four hundred thousand dollars had been drained from Grandpa’s accounts. The money had gone toward my parents’ mortgage refinancing, Kyle’s failed business venture, and a series of luxury purchases in my mother’s name. The power of attorney had been the key. Once they had control, they treated his retirement like a personal fund.
When Grandpa began to notice discrepancies and threatened to call me, they isolated him. The shed was not a momentary act of cruelty. It was a solution. Keep him alive enough to avoid an immediate murder charge, but weak, disoriented, and completely dependent—until the money was gone or he simply died of neglect.
Attempted homicide was no longer an exaggeration.
I sat with the report in Elena’s office while rain streaked the windows. The numbers were clean and damning. Every transfer, every forged signature, every month of deliberate starvation had been documented.
“They’re going to claim you have a personal vendetta,” Elena said.
May you like
“I do,” I answered. “But the evidence doesn’t need my feelings to stand.”
She nodded once. “Then we proceed.”
