I couldn’t continue.
Sophia never asked to hear it.
The prosecutor advised her not to.
Three weeks after the attack, Marcus was formally charged with multiple offenses related to the assault and evidence tampering.
The financial investigation continued separately.
Richard was not charged with attacking his daughter.
But he was under investigation for false reporting and helping conceal evidence.
I thought that would be the worst thing Sophia had to process.
It wasn’t.
A forensic accountant examining Carter Freight uncovered a file labeled E.C. RESERVE.
E.C.
Elise Carter.
Sophia’s dead mother.
The account had been opened two years after Elise died.
And more than $600,000 had moved through it.
When Sophia saw the name, she looked at me and whispered:
“My mother has been dead for eight years.”
HER MOTHER’S NAME
Sophia spent twenty-three days in the hospital.
Recovery did not happen in a montage.
There was no morning when she simply woke up healed.
There were surgeries.
Physical therapy.
Pain that changed by the hour.
Nights when she couldn’t sleep.
Days when she refused visitors because she was tired of watching people look shocked by her face.
There were also ordinary things.
Bad hospital coffee.
Owen, our neighbor’s son, bringing her a ridiculous card with a dog wearing sunglasses.
My sitting beside her while she watched cooking shows she had no intention of following.
Trauma is strange that way.
The world can collapse, and someone still has to decide whether they want chicken broth or tomato soup.
The financial investigation continued while Sophia healed.
Her mother, Elise, had co-founded Carter Freight with Richard.
When she died, most of her estate passed to Richard, but a twenty-two percent ownership interest in the company went to Sophia.
Marcus received a smaller interest.
