Chapter 6 - CAROLINE HAD SEEN OUR MOTHER ALIVE
Caroline denied it over the phone.
Maeve put her on speaker.
“I have the discharge form.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Your signature.”
“Then it’s forged.”
Maeve laughed bitterly.
“Apparently this family loves that hobby.”
Caroline swore she had never been to Lakeview.
Sofia checked phone records with Caroline’s attorney present.
Eleven months earlier, Caroline’s phone had pinged in Milwaukee.
Caroline went silent.
Then:
“I went to Milwaukee for a brand conference.”
No conference existed.
Maeve felt sick.
“Stop.”
Caroline began crying.
Not the delicate kind she used when donors were watching.
Ugly crying.
“I didn’t know it was Mom.”
Maeve froze.
“What?”
A man contacted Caroline claiming he had information about Elizabeth.
He asked her to come alone.
She went.
At Lakeview, she saw a woman she barely recognized.
Thin.
Gray-haired.
Alive.
Their mother.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Caroline sobbed.
“Because she didn’t know me.”
“So?”
“She kept asking for you.”
The words cut deeper than cruelty.
Maeve’s throat closed.
“What did she say?”
“Maeve. She kept saying Maeve.”
Caroline sounded almost angry at the memory.
“I was standing right there and she wanted you.”
There it was.
Even this became competition.
“Who discharged her?”
“A man said he represented a private family trust.”
“Name.”
“I don’t know.”
“Caroline.”
“Vincent.”
Leo went still beside Maeve.
Caroline continued.
“Vincent Rossi.”
Leo’s uncle.
Vincent had brought Caroline to the facility.
Why?
Because Elizabeth had documents linking Richard and Vincent to Bellweather.
She remembered enough.
Vincent wanted to move her before investigators found her.
“Where did he take her?”
“I don’t know.”
“You let him leave with Mom?”
“I thought he was helping.”
Maeve almost screamed.
Then Caroline said:
“He gave me something.”
“What?”
“A letter.”
“From Mom?”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
Caroline hesitated.
Maeve’s voice turned cold.
“Where.”
“In my apartment.”
They returned to Chicago.
Caroline met them with the letter.
Still sealed.
Maeve stared.
“You never opened it?”
“She wrote your name.”
That answer surprised her.
For once, Caroline had respected something that did not belong to her.
Maeve opened it.
The handwriting was shaky.
MAEVE,
IF YOU ARE READING THIS, RICHARD FAILED TO KEEP YOU FROM THE TRUTH.
Maeve sat down.
Elizabeth wrote that she had discovered Richard and Vincent using Sullivan Floral to move money through fake logistics contracts.
She confronted Richard.
Then became ill.
Her medication changed.
She grew confused.
Weak.
Doctors called it psychiatric.
Elizabeth believed someone was deliberately worsening her symptoms.
She wrote:
CAROLINE THINKS RICHARD LOVES HER MORE.
HE DOES NOT.
HE FEARS HER LESS.
Maeve looked at her sister.
Caroline stared at the floor.
Then the final line:
THE COMPANY DOES NOT BELONG TO EITHER OF YOU UNTIL YOU FIND THE GREEN LEDGER.
Maeve frowned.
“What green ledger?”
Leo knew.
His face changed.
“My father had one too.”
Two families.
Two ledgers.
May you like
One hidden financial network.
And Leo’s father had died shortly after he started asking about it.
