Chapter 6
Helena had also consulted a custody attorney.
Not recently.
Thirty-one months earlier.
Rebecca found the billing entry through records connected to Helena’s personal family office.
The consultation occurred five months after Nora believed Roman had died.
Subject:
Third-party guardianship / child welfare contingency.
Roman read the description.
“Third-party.”
“Grandparent or relative,” Rebecca explained.
“Helena.”
“Possibly.”
Nora stood from the conference table.
“She was going to take Sophie.”
“We don’t know that yet.”
Nora looked at Rebecca.
“She told my daughter her father was dead. She kept almost two million dollars from us. She paid someone to photograph every time I couldn’t pay rent. What part are we waiting to understand?”
Rebecca did not flinch.
“The part we can prove.”
Nora sat again.
Roman understood both women.
He wanted certainty too.
Not because Helena deserved caution.
Because Sophie deserved a version of her history that could not later be dismantled by argument.
The custody attorney had retired.
She agreed to speak only after Helena waived privilege or a court ordered disclosure.
Helena refused.
That refusal became another piece without becoming proof.
Meanwhile, Roman investigated the anonymous invitation.
The gala printer confirmed one additional invitation had been ordered after the official batch.
Requested through the event office.
Authorized under Marianne D’Angelo’s staff code.
Roman went directly to his aunt.
Marianne did not deny it.
“I sent it.”
“Why?”
“Because I found Sophie’s photograph.”
Roman stared at her.
“What photograph?”
Marianne opened a desk drawer.
Inside was a private investigator’s report she had found accidentally while reviewing charitable accounts Helena controlled.
The front page showed Nora and Sophie leaving a discount grocery store.
Sophie was wearing the same worn cardigan she wore to the gala.
Marianne looked at Roman.
“I thought you knew where they were.”
“I didn’t.”
“I confronted Helena.”
“What did she say?”
“That Nora had rejected your money and refused contact.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed.
“You believed her?”
“For about twelve hours.”
Marianne slid another paper across the desk.
A payment authorization.
Fifty thousand dollars from Roman.
Received the same month as the photograph.
Marianne had compared the two.
Then she sent the invitation.
“I didn’t know what Helena had done,” Marianne said. “But I knew someone was lying.”
May you like
Third clue.
The person who exposed the secret had done it because the financial records and Nora’s visible poverty could not both be true.
