Chapter 8 - THE MONEY ANSWER
The forensic accountants gave us the first complete financial answer on a rainy Thursday morning.
Corinne and Nathan had diverted $1.46 million from the Carter Children’s Foundation over twenty-two months.
Not through one dramatic transfer.
Through forty-seven invoices.
Consulting retainers.
Event logistics.
Facilities assessments.
Technology upgrades.
Boring descriptions designed to disappear inside ordinary administration.
The money moved into three shell companies.
From there, most of it went to Corinne and Nathan.
The rest funded debt payments and a condominium Nathan owned in Florida.
The foundation board referred the findings to law enforcement.
Accounts were frozen where legally appropriate.
Corinne’s attorney issued a statement saying all payments reflected legitimate services.
Priya Shah, the forensic accountant, looked at me after reading it.
“One vendor billed twelve thousand dollars for security upgrades at a building that had been demolished six months earlier.”
I almost laughed.
Almost.
This was our second major payoff.
We knew why Claire feared Corinne opening the garden room.
Evidence of theft.
We knew why Claire confronted her.
Maisie’s future.
But money did not yet explain Claire’s twenty minutes on the stone steps.
Nathan agreed to an interview after investigators contacted him.
He denied stealing anything.
He also denied knowing Claire had fallen when Corinne called him that evening.
“What did she say?” Detective Jenkins asked.
Nathan claimed he could not remember.
Then investigators showed him banking activity.
At 6:11 p.m., during the same period Claire lay injured, Nathan logged into one vendor account.
At 6:15, he initiated deletion of archived invoice attachments.
The deletions were unsuccessful because the foundation’s accounting provider retained backups.
Nathan’s memory improved.
Corinne told him Claire had discovered “the vendor problem.”
She told him to clean records.
“Did she say Claire was hurt?”
Nathan stared at the table.
“No.”
“Did she say where Claire was?”
Another pause.
“She said, ‘Claire can’t stop us right now.’”
Not a confession.
Not proof he knew why.
But damning.
Corinne had spent the minutes after Claire’s fall thinking about evidence.
Not immediately calling for help.
The consequence landed fast.
Investigators formally reopened Claire’s death for review.
My father came to the house that evening.
He looked ten years older than he had the week before.
“I told you to keep this quiet.”
“Yes.”
“I was wrong.”
I expected relief.
Instead I felt anger.
“You were scared of embarrassment.”
“I was scared of losing control.”
I looked toward Maisie asleep against my chest.
“That seems contagious.”
He took it.
He deserved to.
Later, Claire’s rabbit played another track.
Her voice laughed first.
Then became serious.
“If something happens and Ryan thinks I fell because I was careless, tell him I wasn’t alone.”
I closed my eyes.
Claire had anticipated the exact lie.
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And now I had to discover whether she expected danger—or already knew something worse had begun.
📖 The stolen-money mystery was finally solved, but Claire’s recorded warning that she was “not alone” shifted the fight toward what Corinne did during the twenty minutes before calling 911. 👇
