PART 4
The reckoning was thorough, because I am thorough, and because Evelyn — who turned out to have been waiting her whole retirement for a case like this — was thorough, and because Eric's family had documented their own crimes while toasting champagne.
Eric was charged. So was Richard. So was the man with the briefcase, who turned out to be exactly the kind of shady facilitator that forgery schemes rely on, and who folded immediately when the fraud investigators came, because facilitators always fold. Eleanor and Sarah faced their own exposure for their roles in the conspiracy — you can't toast a fraud and call it "learning to share" and expect the recording not to matter.
Nebula Systems, Richard's failing company that this whole scheme existed to save, collapsed anyway — because a business that can only be saved by forging your sister-in-law's signature was never going to survive, and now its failure came with criminal charges attached.
