Chapter 6 - THE SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS
The old police file had one fact Taylor had avoided for years.
She did take money the night she left.
Six hundred dollars.
Not from the education account.
From a family emergency envelope inside the kitchen drawer.
After James locked her out, Taylor returned through the garage while her parents slept. She took the cash, a sweatshirt, and a phone charger.
The next morning she used $85 for a motel.
James reported $9,000 missing.
Taylor stared at the old statement.
“He inflated it.”
Rachel Moore nodded.
“But you did take six hundred.”
“Yes.”
“Say that publicly before he does.”
Taylor hated the advice.
Then followed it.
In a written statement:
At eighteen, after being expelled from my home with twelve dollars, I returned and took $600 in cash. I believed it was emergency family money and used it for shelter and food. I should have documented or repaid it sooner. It was not the missing education fund.
The statement spread.
Some people attacked her.
Others believed her.
More importantly, James lost the pleasure of exposing it first.
Then forensic review of the police report found James had supplied no proof for the $9,000 figure.
Just his statement.
Jessica had never confirmed the amount.
She finally gave a sworn declaration.
“There was approximately six hundred dollars in the envelope.”
That weakened the original theft story.
Then James countered with something unexpected.
A signed repayment note.
Taylor Miller acknowledges taking family funds and agrees to repay.
Amount line:
Blank.
Signature:
Taylor.
Again.
A real signature on a misleading document.
Taylor remembered signing something days after leaving, when James called and promised she could come home if she “accepted responsibility.”
She signed.
He still refused to let her return.
Rachel examined the paper.
The amount had later been typed as $9,000 on another copy.
Forgery by completion.
Pattern.
Then one small detail changed the corporate case.
The same typewriter font appeared on early Miller Industrial transfer documents.
Not computer font.
Typewriter.
Robert Keene still owned the machine.
Investigators obtained it voluntarily.
Match.
Robert looked scared.
He asked for separate counsel.
Then he said:
“I didn’t know James would put it on Taylor.”
Taylor’s blood went cold.
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Robert had been there from the beginning.
And now the man who helped preserve James’s lie might be the one who finally broke it.
