Chapter 7 - The Final Audit
Two months later, the federal prosecutor’s office requested my presence at their downtown headquarters for a final asset recovery audit before Teresa’s case was officially bound over for a jury trial.
Sitting across from ADA Vance in a cramped, sunlit conference room, I watched as a team of forensic accountants laid out spreadsheets covering years of financial manipulation.
“We’ve successfully frozen and repatriated approximately four hundred and twenty thousand dollars from the offshore accounts your mother and cousin set up,” Vance explained, tapping a calculator against the desk. “Through civil asset forfeiture and restitution orders, those funds will be returned directly to your joint household accounts within thirty days.”
“What about the house deed?” I asked.
“Fully cleared,” Vance replied, sliding a certified county clerk document across the table. “The fraudulent quitclaim deed has been legally annulled and expunged from the public registry. The property title is 100 percent secure in your and Amy’s names.”
I picked up the document, running my thumb over the raised state seal.
“And my mother?”
Vance sighed, leaning back in his chair. “Her defense counsel is pushing for a plea bargain—eight to ten years in a state correctional facility in exchange for pleading guilty to all counts of wire fraud, identity theft, and elder financial exploitation. Given her age and the completeness of our digital paper trail, she’s going to take it.”
I nodded slowly, feeling a strange mixture of closure and exhaustion.
“She called me yesterday from the detention facility,” I said quietly.
Vance raised an eyebrow. “Did you take the call?”
May you like
“I listened for two minutes,” I replied. “She didn't apologize, Vance. Not once. Even now, facing a decade behind bars, she spent ninety seconds yelling at me for ruining her life, and thirty seconds demanding I send her designer clothes and a television for her cell.”
Vance shook his head in disbelief. “Some foundations are rotten all the way down to the bedrock, Connor. You can't fix them. You just have to build over them and move forward.”
