Chapter 5 - The Cousin’s Ledger
When Officer Davies walked out of Rachel’s townhouse and marched straight toward Wendy’s Mercedes, Wendy’s smirk vanished through the tinted glass. I watched from behind the sheer curtains as the officer tapped aggressively on the driver’s window. The conversation lasted barely three minutes before the Mercedes pulled away from the curb in an angry screech of rubber.
Five minutes later, my phone rang.
It wasn't Luca. It wasn't Wendy.
It was Kelly.
“Did they come?” Kelly’s voice was breathless, tinged with a blend of dread and fierce adrenaline.
“CPS just left,” I said, sinking onto the living room sofa while Fiona happily munched on apple slices Rachel had prepared. “They tried to use Wendy’s clinical authority to have Fiona removed tonight.”
Kelly let out a harsh, bitter laugh. “She tried that with my older sister, Marcus. Ten years ago.”
“You mentioned that in your text. Kelly, what happened back then?”
“My sister Marcus had a baby boy, Leo,” Kelly said, her voice dropping lower. “Wendy wanted Leo in her first pilot study for Oakwood. Marcus said no because the therapy involved twelve hours a week of behavioral isolation that wasn’t medically necessary. Wendy did the exact same thing: she told the entire family Marcus was unstable, she got our grandmother to write Marcus out of the family land trust, and she made Marcus’s life hell until my sister moved to Colorado just to breathe.”
“Why didn’t anyone stop her?”
“Because Wendy controls the family money!” Kelly hissed. “My grandfather left a three-million-dollar umbrella trust, and Wendy was appointed sole executor. She uses that money like a leash. If you play along with her image, she pays your down payment. If you question her, she cuts your health insurance subsidy and turns the aunts and cousins against you. Luca sold out years ago, Jessi. He’s been on her payroll since college.”
“I found the addendum in Luca’s desk,” I told her. “A hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
“That’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Kelly said. “Jessi, do you know what Oakwood’s state grant application requires?”
“No.”
“It requires at least three direct case studies showing clinical improvement within six months of enrollment. Wendy doesn't have those cases. Her clinic has been bleeding patients because word got out that she exaggerates diagnoses to bill private insurance. If she doesn’t get this state grant by the end of this month, Oakwood goes into receivership. She’s desperate. That’s why she needed Fiona. A compliant, perfectly healthy child who would miraculously ‘improve’ under her treatment protocol to guarantee her millions in state funding.”
My stomach churned with nausea.
They weren't just trying to bully me. Wendy was committing systematic medical fraud, and she was willing to label her own granddaughter with a fictitious cognitive disability to save her failing clinic.
“Kelly,” I said, my voice hardening into steel. “Do you have records from Marcus’s case?”
“I don’t just have records,” Kelly said. “Marcus kept every single email Wendy sent her. And I work in the billing office at Oakwood, Jessi. I’ve been keeping copies of the falsified intake audits for eight months. I was terrified to go to the state board alone because Wendy would ruin my career. But if you’re fighting for Fiona… I’m not letting that monster touch another child in this family.”
May you like
“Send everything to Sarah Miller,” I said. “Tonight.”
***