Chapter 7 - Madison’s Price
Twenty minutes later, we were in the library’s private conference room with Ethan and Robert. But Ethan hadn't come alone. Flanking him at the door was Marcus Vance, and sitting on the edge of the vinyl chair, shivering and smudging mascara across her pale cheeks, was Madison.
Patricia’s golden daughter. The sister who had sneered at me across the dinner table and run out into the snow when the police sirens approached.
"What is she doing here?" I demanded, keeping Lily securely behind Ethan’s coat.
"Madison tried to access the family trust account this morning in Manhattan," Robert explained, his voice laced with disgust. "The bank flagged her ID because I had already frozen the corporate assets. She’s broke, Claire. Patricia cut her off the moment she ran."
"Mom threw me to the wolves!" Madison burst out, her voice cracking with hysterical panic. "She told me if I didn't take the fall for moving the bank transfers, she’d tell the police that I stole the money from Lily’s fund! She made me sign the transfer authorizations three months ago, telling me it was for a trust expansion!"
"You signed them because she promised you a penthouse in SoHo, Madison," Ethan snapped brutally. "Don't play the innocent victim now."
"I was terrified of her, Ethan!" Madison sobbed, burying her manicured nails into her palms. "You know how she is! If you disobey her, she destroys you! She’s been hiring private investigators since the day you proposed to Claire! She has files on Claire’s parents, Claire’s college transcripts, even Claire’s old medical records!"
I felt a wave of nausea wash over me. "She what?"
"She was building a dossier to file an emergency petition for full custody of Lily," Madison confessed, looking directly at me with genuine, pathetic fear. "Her private investigator is a retired cop named Kurt Daniels. Slate-gray sedan. He was hired to document Claire looking 'erratic' and 'negligent' in public so they could claim parental alienation and gross unfitness!"
*K-R-T.* The license plate.
"Where is the dossier, Madison?" Marcus Vance stepped forward, pulling a legal pad from his briefcase.
"It’s at the main house," Madison whimpered. "In the safe behind the library bookcase. But the safe is keyed to a biometric lock. Only Mom can open it."
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Robert stepped forward, his eyes gleaming with a lethal, determined spark. "That house belongs to the Sterling Family Trust, Madison. And Patricia is currently barred from entering it under the restraining order."
Robert turned to Ethan and Marcus. "We don't need Patricia’s fingerprint. I have the master override code my father installed thirty years ago. It’s time we tear that house down to the studs."
