Chapter 4 - The Truth About the Accident
Jackson Memorial smelled like antiseptic and fear. Penelope was in a private room (I’d paid for the upgrade), sitting up in bed, her blonde hair limp, wearing a faded hospital gown. Her wrists were bandaged—she’d cut herself, not just taken pills. When she saw me, she flinched, then looked down at her hands.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t want to do any of this. My dad made me.”
I sat in the chair next to her bed, keeping my distance. “Start from the beginning. No lies. If you lie to me, I walk out, and you’re on your own with the fraud charges. Deal?”
She nodded, tears spilling over. “My dad has been doing this since I was 16. He finds men who have money, or access to money, and he makes me date them. He tells me if I don’t, he’ll hurt my little brother—he’s 12, lives with my grandma in Orlando. Last year, he found Spencer. He said Spencer was married to a ‘rich, cold bitch who didn’t deserve her money’ and that if I married him, we’d get half of everything, then leave him penniless.”
She pulled her phone from the nightstand, unlocked it, and handed it to me. It was full of texts from Richard: If you tell Spencer the baby isn’t his, I’ll break Jake’s arm. Sleep with him again tonight, make sure he thinks it’s his. Evelyn says the wedding is next week—don’t mess this up, or you’ll both regret it.
“Evelyn knew?” I said, my blood running cold.
“Evelyn contacted my dad,” Penelope said, her voice shaking. “She found his profile on a scammer forum last October. She told him about you, about Apex, about how you couldn’t have kids. She said if he helped her get you out of the house, she’d give him 20% of whatever they stole from you. They planned the whole thing together. The wedding, the fake investment, everything.”
I scrolled through the texts. There were hundreds of them, going back 10 months, between Evelyn and Richard, plotting every detail. Make sure Penelope wears that white dress Laura hates. Tell Spencer the investment closes the day after the wedding, so he’ll sign the power of attorney. When Laura comes back from San Antonio, we’ll change the locks, tell her she’s trespassing.
And then I saw it. A text from Richard to Evelyn, dated March 14, 2018—two days before Spencer’s accident.
The truck is ready. We run him off the road at mile marker 47, no witnesses. The wife will sell everything to save him. You get your debts paid, I get my cut. Easy money.
I dropped the phone like it burned my hand. The room spun. For eight years, I’d thought the accident was a tragedy, a random act of bad luck. But it wasn’t. It was a hit. A setup. Evelyn and Richard had tried to kill Spencer to get to my money. And when I’d lost the baby running down those hospital stairs? That was just a bonus to them. A way to make me “broken” later, easy to throw away.
“They ran him off the road,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “They almost killed him. And you knew?”
Penelope was sobbing now, her whole body shaking. “I found out last month! I found old emails on my dad’s laptop! I tried to tell Spencer, but he wouldn’t listen! He said I was just jealous of you, that I was making it up! My dad found out I looked, he hit me, he said if I told anyone, he’d kill Jake!”
I sat there for a long time, staring at the wall. All the pieces fit. The police report with no witnesses, the truck that vanished, Evelyn’s sudden “gambling debt” that appeared right after the accident, the way she’d pushed me to sell my parents’ apartment so fast, like she was scared I’d change my mind. They’d planned it all. And I’d walked right into their trap.
“Okay,” I said, finally, standing up. I took Penelope’s hand—she flinched, then squeezed it tight. “You’re going to give me every single text, every email, every photo you have. You’re going to testify against Richard and Evelyn, and Spencer too, if he knew. In return, I’ll get you immunity. I’ll pay for a lawyer, I’ll get your brother into a safe school, I’ll pay for your college, whatever you want. But you have to tell the whole truth, no matter what. Deal?”
May you like
Penelope nodded so hard her hair fell in her face. “Deal. Thank you. Thank you so much.”
I walked out of the hospital, the Miami sun blazing, and called Marcus. “Meet me at the penthouse in an hour. We’re not just doing fraud anymore. We’re doing attempted murder, conspiracy, and wrongful death for my parents. Because if they did this to Spencer, I bet they did it to my mom and dad too.”
