Chapter 20 - The Ledger Project
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After the trial, I refused to become a tragic media symbol. I didn't do interviews. I took my civil settlement—a massive sum extracted from the liquidation of the Voss estate—and I went back to Ohio.
I moved into the small apartment above my mother's diner. I went to a local physical therapy clinic sandwiched between a hardware store and a pharmacy. I learned to stand using parallel bars. I learned to walk with a cane. My right leg never fully recovered, and my spine aches fiercely when it rains, but I survived.
Two years later, I founded The Greer Ledger Project.
It is a nonprofit agency that provides forensic financial investigations, secure evidence preservation, and emergency legal referrals for people trapped in controlling, abusive, or wealthy families. We opened our first office in a renovated bank downtown. Jonah Mercer came out of retirement to be my director of investigations.
We help women whose signatures are being forged, whose accounts are being drained, and whose families hide their cruelty behind closed mansion doors. We balance the ledger. We record the truth.
Three years after the trial, I received a letter from Adrian, sent from a low-security prison. He wrote that prison had stripped away his excuses. He admitted he had let his mother define love as obedience. He enclosed banking details for one last hidden offshore account, offering it up for restitution. He didn't ask for a visit, and he didn't ask for forgiveness.
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I gave the account numbers to Jonah to trace, and I shredded the letter.
I didn't forgive him, but I didn't obsess over him either. The Voss family was finally closed out of my books. I had a new ledger to balance, and for the first time in my life, I was holding the pen.
