Chapter 5
Monday morning, the war began in earnest.
Marcus filed our discovery requests.
They were brutal.
- All bank records from the last ten years
- All credit card statements
- All tax returns
- All emails and text messages between the three of them and anyone else
- All medical records for Megan
- All employment records for George
- All records related to any property they owned
We asked for everything.
And we meant everything.
Their lawyer, a man named Harold Whitmore, filed a motion to quash almost immediately.
He called our requests "oppressive," "harassing," and "an obvious attempt to intimidate."
The judge denied his motion three days later.
In her ruling, Judge Morrison wrote:
"Given the seriousness of the allegations and the apparent coordinated nature of the defendants' conduct, the plaintiff's discovery requests are proportionate and necessary. The defendants' objections are denied."
Marcus sent me a copy of the ruling with a note:
First blood. Us.
I smiled.
It felt good.
But the victory was small.
The real work was just beginning.
Our team of paralegals and forensic accountants began digging through the mountains of documents that started arriving.
And they found things.
Lots of things.
First, we found that George had been siphoning money from his small construction business for years.
He had been paying himself under the table.
Falsifying expenses.
Underreporting income.
The IRS would be very interested in what we found.
Then we found something even more interesting.
Megan had a history.
Not just a history of being spoiled and entitled.
A history of violence.
We found police reports from three years earlier.
A fight with a boyfriend.
She had stabbed him with a kitchen knife.
The charges had been dropped.
George had paid the boyfriend $50,000 to recant his statement and move out of state.
We found the canceled check.
We found the text messages arranging the payoff.
We found the boyfriend's new address in Arizona.
Then we found something else.
Something that made my blood run cold.
Medical records from when I was seventeen.
I had been in a car accident.
A serious one.
I had always been told it was my fault.
That I had lost control of the car on an icy road.
But the medical records told a different story.
The emergency room notes mentioned that my sister, who had been a passenger, had been seen "grabbing the steering wheel" by a witness.
The witness statement had been in the police file.
But it had never been followed up.
George had told the police I was a reckless driver.
Patricia had backed him up.
Megan had said nothing.
And I had believed them.
For twelve years, I had carried the guilt of that accident.
I had believed I was responsible.
But it wasn't true.
Megan had grabbed the wheel.
And my parents had covered it up.
Just like they were covering up what she did to me now.
I sat in our home office, staring at the documents.
Nathan came in and saw my face.
"Emily? What is it?"
I handed him the file.
He read it in silence.
When he finished, he looked at me with horror.
"She tried to kill you when you were seventeen."
"It looks that way."
"And your parents covered it up."
"Just like they covered up the stabbing. Just like they covered up kicking my baby to death."
I stood up and walked to the window.
My hands were shaking.
Not from grief this time.
From rage.
A white-hot, burning rage that threatened to consume me.
Megan hadn't just attacked me once.
She had been trying to destroy me for most of our lives.
And our parents had helped her.
Every single time.
They had enabled her.
Protected her.
Paid off her victims.
And all the while, they had treated me like the problem.
Like I was the difficult one.
Like I owed them apologies.
The realization was staggering.
My entire life had been built on a foundation of lies.
My parents had never loved me.
They had tolerated me at best.
And Megan...
Megan had hated me since the day I was born.
I turned to Nathan.
"Find the boyfriend. The one she stabbed. I want to talk to him."
Nathan nodded.
"I'll have our investigators locate him today."
"And find the witness from the car accident. The one who saw Megan grab the wheel. I want to talk to him too."
"Emily, are you sure? This is going to reopen a lot of old wounds."
"I don't care about old wounds," I said. "I care about the truth. And I care about making sure Megan can never hurt anyone ever again."
Nathan came over and took my hands.
"Then we'll find them. And we'll get the truth. And when we're done, she'll never be able to hurt anyone again."
I believed him.
But I also knew something he didn't.
The investigation was turning up more than just evidence for the lawsuit.
It was turning up the story of my entire life.
And every new discovery was proving the same thing.
I had never been safe in that house.
Not for one single day.
And the family I had always wanted to believe in had never actually existed.
They were monsters.
May you like
All three of them.
And I was going to make sure the whole world knew it.
