Chapter 4 - What Dad Took From the Wreck

Olivia whispered everything quickly.

After the firefighters pulled Dad from the driver’s side, he had been able to walk.

Before paramedics moved him away, Olivia saw him reach through the damaged rear door and pull my backpack free.

“He put it behind the guardrail,” she said. “Then later I saw him carry something to Aunt Meredith’s driveway.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“Because he told me you caused the crash.”

My stomach tightened.

“How?”

“He said you’d been messing with the car because you wanted insurance money.”

That was so absurd I almost laughed.

Almost.

Then I remembered the credit card in my name.

Dad had already been willing to create financial facts and let me discover them afterward.

Keller obtained a search warrant for Dad’s house and vehicles two days later.

My backpack wasn’t there.

My laptop was.

Police found it under blankets in the garage.

The bank envelope was gone.

Rachel Monroe, my estate attorney, visited me that afternoon.

“Your mother’s trust still exists,” she said.

“How much is left?”

Her expression answered before her words did.

“We’re still tracing it.”

Dad had withdrawn money repeatedly under categories such as education, medical support, and dependent living expenses.

“But I paid my tuition myself.”

“I know.”

“And I have insurance.”

“I know.”

Nearly $62,000 had been distributed over three years.

None of it had come to me.

The trust had originally contained more than $130,000 for my benefit.

“Where did it go?”

“That’s what we’re finding out.”

Filing the petition to suspend Dad as trustee meant making the family conflict public in probate court.

Meredith warned me what would happen.

“People will say you’re doing it because of what he said at the crash.”

“He stole from me before the crash.”

“I know.”

I signed anyway.

Rachel filed for an emergency accounting and temporary suspension of Dad’s control over the trust.

The following morning Dad left me a voicemail.

“You think you’re protecting yourself, Grace? You don’t understand what your mother left behind.”

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He sounded less angry than frightened.

For the first time, I wondered whether the money he had already taken was not the thing he was most afraid I would discover.