A tiny twitch.
She was scared.
“You gave Sophia access to that account,” she said. “Maybe she spent it.”
“She did not,” Naomi said.
Audrey snapped, “You can’t prove that.”
Naomi turned one page.
“We can.”
She laid out login records.
Device IDs.
IP addresses.
A purchase receipt for a luxury handbag.
A reservation at a spa resort.
A payment to a private storage unit.
All under Audrey’s email.
Audrey took one step backward.
Detective Harris moved with her.
Third payoff.
The stolen money had not vanished.
It had left footprints.
My mother’s voice lowered.
“Lucas, do not do this.”
“Do what?”
“Destroy your family.”
I looked at the tablet still frozen on Sophia being dragged down the hall.
“You did that.”
Something in her face shifted.
Anger, yes.
But under it, resentment.
Old and rotten.
“You have no idea what it is like,” she said. “To watch your own father give everything to your son. To be treated like a visitor in the life you created.”
