Chapter 6 - The Ledger of Lies
Henry stepped into the hospital room at midnight, carrying a thick manila folder and a steaming cup of black coffee. He pulled the privacy curtain shut, casting a glance at Maya, who had finally drifted off into an exhausted, medically induced sleep.
"Julian," Henry said quietly. "You need to see this."
He dropped the folder onto the small laminate table beside my chair. I flipped it open. Inside were three years' worth of bank statements from the trust account I had established for Maya.
Every month, without fail, $10,000 had cleared from my London account into the Chase Bank account Eleanor managed.
And every month, within forty-eight hours of receipt, the funds were dispersed.
Not to the Latin School of Chicago. Not to pediatricians or speech therapists.
$4,200 a month to a high-stakes private credit account associated with a casino in Michigan City.
$3,000 a month to a boutique cosmetic surgeon on the Gold Coast for Eleanor’s continuous face-lifts and Botox treatments.
$2,500 a month to luxury consignment shops and vintage fur dealers.
"She wasn't spending a penny on Maya," Henry said, his jaw tight. "Maya hasn't been enrolled in school since last September. Eleanor filed fake homeschooling paperwork with the state of Illinois, claiming the girl was bedridden with an autoimmune condition."
"She hid her," I whispered, the paper shaking in my trembling fingers. "She kept her in the dark so no one would see what she was doing with the money."
"It's worse than that, Julian," Henry murmured, pulling a second sheet of paper from his inner pocket. "Look at the primary beneficiary clause of your father’s estate. Eleanor gets the interest dividends from the main trust until she dies, but the principal—the twelve million dollars in commercial real estate—was deeded to Maya on her eighth birthday."
I looked up, stunned. Maya’s eighth birthday was two weeks ago.
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"Eleanor was trying to have Maya declared legally incompetent or medically incapacitated," Henry explained, his voice chilling the air. "If Maya was deemed mentally unfit to inherit, the trust documents state Eleanor retains sole management of the twelve-million-dollar principal for the rest of her life."
"She didn't just neglect her," I realized, the horror washing over me in cold waves. "She was trying to break her brain. She was trying to starve her into institutionalization."
