Chapter 6 - THE AUDIT OF SHADOWS
While Mattie rested under the care of the hospital staff, I turned my full attention toward the financial destruction Wayne had left behind.
I set up a temporary command center in a conference room on the top floor of the bank building in downtown Little Rock. Joining me were my lead corporate attorney, Marcus Vance, and a team of forensic accountants I had flown in overnight from Dallas.
By Thursday afternoon, the paper trail was fully exposed on a whiteboard lining the conference room wall.
"It's worse than we thought, Susanna," Marcus said, tapping a red marker against a detailed ledger chart. "Wayne didn't just spend the fifteen thousand a month you sent him. He used your corporate signature guarantee—which he forged using an old legal document from your father's estate—to take out three secondary mortgages on your mother's original home on Oak Street."
I stared at the board, my coffee cup trembling in my grip. "He siphoned off one point two million from my wire transfers, and he foreclosed on Mom's house?"
"Exactly," the lead accountant explained, flipping open a blue folder. "He funneled the cash through three shell corporations registered under the name Bird Enterprises LLC. He used the money to pay off his own personal gambling debts at casinos in Tunica, purchase high-end motor vehicles, and fund a lavish lifestyle for himself and his girlfriend. When the mortgage payments on the Oak Street house bounced two years ago, he let the bank foreclose on it without telling your mother."
"Where is the house now?" I asked sharply. "Who bought it at the foreclosure auction?"
Marcus smiled faintly, pushing a real estate deed across the table toward me. "That's the one piece of good news. The house was purchased by an investment holding group that specializes in distressed residential properties. It’s currently sitting empty, completely intact, waiting for a renovation team."
"Buy it back," I commanded instantly. "Pay whatever price they ask. Double their purchase price if necessary. I want the deed in Mattie Bird's name by five o'clock tomorrow afternoon."
"Consider it done," Marcus nodded, noting the instruction. "And what about the criminal charges against Wayne?"
"Push for the maximum sentence on every single count," I said, my voice hardening like tempered steel. "Elder exploitation carries up to twenty years in Arkansas. Fraud and forgery carry another fifteen. I want him to understand every single day he spends in a state penitentiary that he traded his mother's health for chrome rims and gambling trips."
Marcus took a deep breath, looking at me with serious eyes. "Susanna... if this goes to trial, your mother may be subpoenaed to testify about her living conditions in that shed. It could be extremely traumatic for her."
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I looked out the high conference room window at the sun breaking through the clouds over the Arkansas River.
"She won't have to say a word," I said quietly. "The bank records, the medical reports, and the photos of that shed will speak for her. Wayne took advantage of her silence for seven years. Now, my money and my legal team will be her voice."
