Chapter 2 - The Secret AcquisitionI drove straight to the downtown Marriott Hotel, checked into a executive suite overlooking the river, and set my mother’s Bible on the glass bedside table.
I sat on the edge of the bed, my body aching from my hospital shift, but my mind razor-sharp.
I opened my laptop and logged into my private secure server.
Three years ago, when my father passed away, he had left behind a twenty-thousand-dollar life insurance policy intended to pay off the remaining house mortgage. But the money had mysteriously vanished within weeks of his funeral, forcing me to take on double nursing shifts to keep the house out of foreclosure.
At the time, Lena had claimed Dad had secret gambling debts. I had believed her.
I opened a file sent by my private investigator, Marcus, whom I had hired two weeks prior when I first noticed Derek snooping around my desk.
What Marcus uncovered made the blood freeze in my veins.
My father had never owed a single dollar in gambling debts.
The twenty-thousand-dollar insurance check had been deposited into a private account controlled by Derek—and used as a down payment for his illegal speculative cryptocurrency trading account.
Worst of all, over the last six months, Derek and Lena had forged my mother’s signature on a second mortgage equity line of credit, borrowing one hundred and fifty thousand dollars against the house!
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They hadn't locked me out because I made the house "crowded."
They had locked me out because the bank was about to issue a formal foreclosure notice, and they were terrified I would discover the forged loan documents before they could sell the property out from under my mother!
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