Chapter 6: The Bigger Picture
Rachel called the next morning while Maya was eating breakfast she barely tasted.
“I went through everything you sent,” Rachel said. “Maya… this isn’t just the twenty-three thousand from your delivery fund.”
Maya set her fork down. “How much more?”
“Over the last fourteen months, there have been consistent transfers out of the joint accounts and two business accounts Eric controls. Some go to Diane directly. Others go through shell companies I’m still tracing. The total is sitting at roughly one hundred and forty thousand dollars. And that’s only what I can see so far.”
Maya was silent for a long moment.
One hundred and forty thousand.
She had been so focused on the delivery money that she had missed the larger pattern. Eric had been bleeding their accounts slowly, carefully, for over a year.
“There’s something else,” Rachel continued. “One of the companies receiving money is registered under Diane’s maiden name. Another is linked to a man named Victor Hale. Does that name mean anything to you?”
Maya closed her eyes. Victor Hale was Eric’s college roommate. He had shown up at their wedding and disappeared from their lives shortly after.
“No,” she said. “But I’m going to find out who he is.”
After the call ended, Maya opened her laptop again. Even though the doctor had told her to rest, she couldn’t stop. Every new discovery made the cold feeling inside her chest grow heavier and sharper.
Eric and Diane hadn’t just taken the money meant for their daughter’s birth.
They had been systematically stripping away their financial security for months while smiling at family dinners and pretending everything was fine.
Maya saved the new files into the folder she had named Evidence.
Then she opened a fresh document and began typing names and connections in a clean, organized list.
May you like
She was no longer just collecting proof.
She was building a map.
