Chapter 5 - LAURA'S EXPLANATION
Laura hired attorney Lauren Pierce.
She did not deny helping Prairie Hope.
She framed it differently.
Jason’s company employed twenty-three people.
If it failed:
caregivers lost jobs,
elderly clients lost continuity,
Jason lost his house.
Laura said she believed Prairie Hope would repay everything after a Medicaid reimbursement backlog cleared.
Some repayments actually occurred.
$9,000 returned to the Miller account.
That mattered.
Then the childcare.
Laura claimed:
Tessa was never intended to be “babysitter.”
She left only for short errands.
Tessa had:
phone access,
neighbors nearby,
emergency numbers.
Grant stared.
“Five hours?”
Laura looked down.
“That day got away from me.”
Where had she gone?
Not her sister’s.
Prairie Hope’s office.
Why?
A lender had threatened to freeze payroll.
Laura met Jason and a private lender.
They were trying to secure a $150,000 emergency line.
Grant asked:
“You left an infant with a nine-year-old to save your brother’s payroll?”
Laura snapped:
“I thought I’d be gone forty minutes.”
That was the first statement everyone believed.
May you like
Not because it excused her.
Because it sounded exactly like how the disaster started.
