Chapter 6 - The Secret Ledger
With Julian back in jail on a no-bail hold for violating the protective order, I returned to our marital home to pack up the rest of my and Lily’s belongings.
While going through the filing cabinets in Julian's home office, looking for Lily's passport, I noticed a false bottom in the bottom drawer. Julian was arrogant, but he wasn't as clever as he thought. I pried the wooden panel up with a screwdriver.
Inside was a black leather ledger and a hidden hard drive.
I plugged the drive into my laptop. It took me three hours of reading through spreadsheets to realize what I was looking at.
Julian worked as a senior wealth manager for a massive private equity firm. The spreadsheets detailed a shadow-accounting scheme. Over the last four years, Julian had been skimming millions of dollars from his elderly clients' portfolios and funneling them into offshore shell companies under Beatrice's name.
They weren't just terrible people. They were federal criminals.
I called Victoria Thorne immediately.
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"Victoria," I said, my heart pounding with adrenaline. "I just found out why Beatrice is so obsessed with keeping up appearances. They've been stealing from the country club members to fund their lifestyle."
Victoria actually laughed. "Oh, Claire. Bring that drive to my office right now. We are going to drop a nuclear bomb."
