Chapter 6 - Olivia Had Been Choosing Sides for Years
After I left the hospital, I moved into Meredith’s guest room in Avondale.
Dad told relatives I was refusing to come home because I wanted to punish him.
The truth was simpler.
I no longer felt safe sleeping under his roof.
Olivia stayed with him.
That became the hardest consequence of everything I had started.
She was seventeen, still in high school, and legally Dad remained her parent unless the court found reason to change that.
She answered my texts less often.
When she did, they sounded rehearsed.
Dad says the trust paid for our whole life.
Dad says Mom expected him to use it.
Dad says Aunt Meredith hates him.
Meredith read one message and put my phone facedown.
“He’s making her responsible for protecting him.”
“She believes him.”
“Sometimes those are different things.”
Detective Keller’s investigation moved more slowly than I wanted.
The fire examiner found that the fuel-line fitting had been removed and reattached incorrectly before the crash.
That could have caused the leak.
But proving who had touched it was another matter.
Collins Automotive had warned Dad not to drive because their technician noticed fuel seepage and wanted the Lincoln left overnight.
Dad declined.
The service manager remembered the argument.
“Your father said he could handle the line himself,” Keller told me.
Dad had done mechanical work when he was younger.
That meant the crash might not have been sabotage in the way we first imagined.
It might have been something more ordinary and somehow more infuriating:
Dad knew the car was dangerous.
He thought he knew better.
And he drove his daughters anyway.
Rachel’s trust investigation meanwhile showed Dad’s roofing company was close to collapse.
He owed suppliers more than $90,000.
His home equity line was nearly maxed out.
Suddenly, the money disappearing from my trust had a destination.
Yet something still didn’t fit.
Dad had risked prison by taking my money.
But the remaining balance was not enough to save his company.
When Rachel requested records involving Olivia, Dad’s lawyer objected immediately.
“Why Olivia?” I asked.
Rachel looked at me.
May you like
“Because your mother created two trusts.”
Nobody had ever told me about the second one.
