Chapter 5 - GRANT'S COMPANY
Grant Wallace did not own Carter Home Supply.
His wife did.
The company sold:
blankets,
portable heaters,
storage bins,
basic kitchenware,
and seasonal household kits.
Winter Promise had purchased from it for four years.
The vendor relationship was not automatically illegal, and real goods had been delivered. But Grant’s household profited from purchases he helped authorize, while board records failed to disclose the connection.
That was a real conflict.
Then Olivia traced Case Fourteen’s $612.
It was not a direct payment “for Lily.”
The dashboard automatically assigned an average cost to each emergency clothing case for county reimbursement analysis.
No $612 check had been sent anywhere specifically because Lily existed.
Important correction.
Rachel exhaled.
“So they didn’t steal six hundred dollars using her name.”
“Not like that,” Olivia said.
“But they did count her as a served child.”
“Yes.”
Then Eric admitted he helped design the average-cost model.
Rachel stared.
“You built the thing that made fake cases look like money.”
“I built cost allocation.”
“Which became that.”
“Yes.”
He had not intended fraud.
But his work made inflated case counts financially useful.
Then Grant’s attorney sent a letter demanding return of the flash drive.
It contained confidential information about vulnerable families.
That concern was legitimate.
Rachel’s attorney arranged for the drive to be sealed and examined through proper channels rather than casually copied.
Good.
Then Lily’s child-safety interview produced the first account of what happened at Evelyn’s house.
Rachel listened only to the summary.
No graphic detail.
Lily said Grandma wanted more pictures.
Lily did not want to wear the black bag.
Evelyn told her:
“It’s just pretending.”
Lily cried.
Later there was an argument.
Lily refused another photo.
The marks on her back were consistent with what Lily described as punishment by Evelyn.
No one needed to dramatize it further.
Rachel’s hands shook.
Eric started crying.
“I didn’t know.”
Rachel turned on him.
“You left her there after you knew Mom was staging fake hardship photos.”
“I thought the photos were the worst thing.”
“You thought wrong.”
He did not defend himself.
Then Lily had said one more thing during the interview.
“Grandma got really scared when Daddy found the red folder.”
Rachel looked at Eric.
“What red folder?”
He wiped his face.
“I never found a red folder.”
May you like
Lily had seen something Eric had not.
And according to her, Evelyn feared it more than the flash drive.
