Chapter 5 - MADELINE FOUND OUT HER WEDDING WAS PAID FOR WITH STOLEN MONEY
Three days after the wedding, Madeline came to Daniel and Evie’s house without calling.
Still angry.
Still wearing the expression of someone who believed anger automatically meant innocence.
She dropped a stack of invoices onto the kitchen island.
“Mom’s accounts are frozen.”
Evie frowned.
“I didn’t freeze them.”
Madeline turned to Daniel.
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Daniel looked through the papers.
The answer was the Whitaker Family Trust’s independent accountant.
Vivian had been using trust-controlled accounts to pay personal expenses that required co-approval.
Madeline’s wedding included:
$78,000 ballroom deposit.
$31,000 flowers.
$19,500 designer gown.
$12,400 band.
$9,800 champagne.
$46,000 destination honeymoon package.
Nearly all charged through a family foundation account labeled:
Community Heritage Gala.
There had been no community gala.
Madeline went pale.
“Mom said it was family money.”
“It is family money,” Daniel said. “That doesn’t mean she can lie about what it’s for.”
Evie said nothing.
The timing was not accidental.
During Vivian’s medical evaluation, Robert Whitaker—Daniel and Madeline’s father—finally opened financial mail Vivian had always managed.
He found the foundation charges.
Then more.
Personal travel.
Jewelry.
Payments to a private investigator.
Cash transfers.
The investigator’s name stopped Evie cold.
May you like
Gregory Pike.
The same man who had followed Evie outside work three months earlier.
