Chapter 6 - THE THREAT ABOUT LAURA
Michael took the tablet before Ava could answer.
“Where are you?”
Rachel smiled faintly.
“You came home too early.”
“You tied my daughter inside a freezing room.”
“She was never in real danger.”
“She has bruises on her wrists.”
“David became impatient.”
“You were standing beside him.”
Rachel’s expression hardened.
“Bring the journal.”
“I do not have it.”
“Then find it.”
“What does it have to do with Laura’s death?”
Rachel looked away from the camera.
“Laura did not die only because of cancer.”
Michael’s chest tightened.
Laura had been diagnosed with an aggressive blood cancer.
She received treatment for eighteen months.
Her decline had been painful but medically explained.
“What are you saying?”
“She found evidence inside your company.”
“She threatened David.”
“What evidence?”
“The journal explains everything.”
The call ended.
Michael looked at Ava.
She had heard enough to understand.
“Did Rachel hurt Mom too?”
“I do not know.”
The honest answer frightened them both.
Ruth arrived at the hospital that evening.
She hugged Ava for a long time.
Then she turned toward Michael.
“I should have come sooner.”
“So should I.”
Ruth sat beside Ava.
“Sweetheart, where did your mother’s journal go?”
Ava looked at Michael.
“Mom told me to give it to Grandma if Rachel came into our house.”
“You were five when she died,” Michael said.
“I remembered.”
“Where is it?”
Ava had hidden the journal inside the old dollhouse in Laura’s art room.
The dollhouse belonged to Laura as a child.
One section of its roof could be removed.
Michael had nearly donated it after his remarriage.
Ava begged him to keep it.
He had thought she was being sentimental.
She had been protecting evidence.
Officer Ruiz arranged for police to retrieve the journal.
Inside were financial records, names, dates, and handwritten observations.
Laura described suspicious payments from Collins Freight to a medical consulting company called Northfield Family Solutions.
The same company owned the hidden pantry camera account.
The payments were authorized by David Cole.
Rachel processed the receiving accounts.
Laura discovered the transfers while reviewing the company’s insurance plan.
The money had been taken from a trust created for Ava by Laura’s father.
Michael had not known the trust existed.
Laura’s father left Ava twenty million dollars.
The money was invested through Collins Freight until she turned eighteen.
David had been stealing from it for years.
May you like
Laura confronted him.
Two weeks later, her medication changed.
