Chapter 13 - FORTY-EIGHT HOURS
Arthur was placed under protection.
The blood on the watch was his.
He admitted Victoria had struck him when she discovered he copied the files.
He hadn’t reported it because he was afraid.
The suitcase had been bait.
Victoria wanted police to believe she had fled.
Instead, investigators discovered she was still in Connecticut.
But now she had money.
Documents.
And access to accounts nobody had frozen yet.
A federal financial investigator gave us the deadline.
Forty-eight hours.
After that, several transfers would settle through foreign institutions and become dramatically harder to recover.
My stolen inheritance was disappearing.
So was the money taken from other victims.
The prosecutors sought emergency orders.
Lawyers worked through the night.
I was asked whether I would testify in an emergency civil hearing.
My attorney warned me what Dominic’s legal team would do.
“They’ll attack your credibility.”
“I know.”
“They’ll expose private messages.”
“I know.”
“They may use your counseling records.”
“Those records are lies.”
“That doesn’t mean hearing them won’t hurt.”
I looked at my bandaged hand.
For eighteen months, pain had purchased my silence.
Not anymore.
“I’ll testify.”
The next morning, cameras waited outside the courthouse.
Someone had leaked the case.
Reporters shouted questions.
Dominic’s attorney released a statement calling the allegations part of a “marital financial dispute.”
A financial dispute.
As though my hand had accidentally landed on a burner while arguing over a bank account.
Inside, Victoria’s attorney appeared without Victoria.
He claimed he did not know where she was.
Then the judge temporarily froze several Bennett-controlled entities.
Millions stopped moving.
For one brief moment, we won.
As I left the courtroom, Chloe caught up with me.
“We found one account that wasn’t frozen.”
“How much?”
“Two-point-three million.”
“Where?”
“Domestic.”
“Whose name?”
She hesitated.
Then turned her phone toward me.
The account holder appeared on screen.
ERIN HAYES.
My sister.
I stared at the name.
“That’s impossible.”
“The account was opened eight months ago.”
“Erin doesn’t have that kind of money.”
“Claire.”
I looked at Chloe.
“She may not know she has it.”
Then my phone rang.
Erin.
I answered immediately.
Her voice was shaking.
“Claire, there are police outside.”
“Stay inside.”
“I found something.”
“What?”
“A debit card.”
My heart pounded.
May you like
“Where?”
“In the purse Victoria gave me for Christmas.”
