Chapter 7 - My Father Started It
Hollis wasn't originally fraudulent.
My father had created the company years earlier to handle legitimate administrative work for several family investments.
After his death, it should have been dissolved.
Instead, Victoria kept it alive.
Why?
Debt.
My father had left behind financial obligations most of us never knew existed.
Victoria had quietly used foundation funds to cover some of them, convincing herself she was protecting the family name and would repay everything.
Then temporary borrowing became permanent.
Rachel discovered it.
That explained motive.
It still didn't prove murder.
Then Margaret told me something else.
Rachel hadn't planned to expose Victoria publicly.
She had offered her a way out.
Repay the foundation.
Resign from financial control.
Disclose the accounting errors to the board.
Victoria refused.
Rachel planned to bring the records to the board the morning after she died.
I stared at Margaret.
“You knew?”
“Not until afterward.”
“Then why stay quiet?”
“Because your mother told me Rachel had been drinking.”
That explained the red wine.
Victoria claimed Rachel arrived intoxicated, became aggressive, spilled wine near the stairs and fell while arguing.
Margaret believed her.
So had I.
But Rachel rarely drank.
And the medical records from that night contained something I should have noticed eleven months earlier.
Her blood-alcohol level didn't support my mother's story.
The wine on the floor hadn't come from Rachel drinking too much.
So why had Victoria cleaned it before help arrived?
For the first time, I could see the shape of the lie.
May you like
But I still couldn't tell whether my mother had pushed my wife—
or whether she'd covered up something else.
