Chapter 1 - The Missing Future
I stared at the glowing screen of my phone in absolute disbelief.
The numbers on the banking application simply did not make sense.
My mother sat on the edge of the cheap hotel bed.
She gently pressed a plastic bag of ice against her bruised cheek.
My best friend Paige paced aggressively across the worn carpet.
"Download every single bank statement right now," Paige ordered.
I nodded slowly while my hands shook uncontrollably.
We had worked for seven years to save that money.
Now our joint account held a pathetic balance of barely over one thousand dollars.
I clicked through the transaction history to find where the money went.
Dustin had been draining small amounts for the past six months.
However, the largest sum was transferred just yesterday afternoon.
He had wired exactly one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to an external account.
The recipient was listed as a private shell company called Crimson Holdings.
Paige immediately opened her laptop and accessed the state business registry.
She typed furiously on her keyboard while I held my breath.
"I am going to find out who owns this company," Paige muttered.
The database loaded the official registration documents for Crimson Holdings.
Paige stopped typing and stared at the screen with wide eyes.
"Audrey, you are not going to believe this," Paige whispered.
I walked over to the desk and looked at the glowing monitor.
The registered owner of the shell company was Brenda.
It was Dustin’s mother, the woman I had spent weeks nursing back to health.
Before I could even process this betrayal, my phone suddenly rang.
The caller ID displayed Brenda's name.
I answered the call and put it on speaker for Paige to hear.
May you like
"If you ever want to see your savings or your life again, you will stop looking into Crimson Holdings," Brenda said coldly.
The line went dead before I could speak.
