My Family Chose The Fake Heiress Then Begged For Me Back Chapter 06
The forensic team told Detective Reyes later that the break in the case was almost absurdly simple.
The photos I’d taken on my first day—every page of the handover documents, photographed and uploaded—turned out to be the original, pre-tampering data.
Investigators compared them with the altered records, and the missing money suddenly had a paper trail.
The lead investigator studied the two sets for a long time. Then he asked Reyes: “Why would she photograph all of this on day one?”
Reyes smiled.
“Habit. She documents everything.”
I didn’t know any of this. I was in the guest room eating delivery pizza. Two large pies. Already through the first one and halfway into the second.
My phone lit up.
A text from Mia.
Nora, let’s talk. If this blows up any bigger, it hurts both of us. I can split the money with you—fifty-fifty.
I stared at it for three seconds.
Screenshot. Save. Forward to Detective Reyes.
Then I typed back:
Okay.
Set the phone down. Picked up another slice.
Upstairs, something shattered in Mia’s room.
This time, louder than all the other times combined.
The tech unit spent two weeks extracting data from Mia’s phone after it was seized.
The day the results came back, the lead investigator stared at the report for a long time, closed the folder, and said: “This girl is eighteen?”
Six burner accounts. Each on a different platform.
The week I arrived at the Aldrich house, those accounts had started posting nonstop.
Heard the Aldrich family’s “real daughter” was raised by a shoplifter.
What kind of upbringing do you think she had?
Mia Aldrich is the true Aldrich heiress—too bad good people always get the short end of the stick.
Dozens of posts. Hundreds of comments. Thousands of shares.
All of it—one person.
A saved voice memo on her phone—left behind by accident—captured a call to the foundation’s finance officer:
“Use the template I sent you. The numbers are already filled in—just plug them into the system.”
“Miss Aldrich, the discrepancy is too large. An audit would catch it.”
“The auditor is someone I arranged. Not your problem.”
The browser history was worse. Searched two days after I moved in:
How to fake bruises without leaving evidence
Realistic ligature mark props DIY
Detective Reyes compiled everything and delivered it to the Aldrich house.
Dad sat in his study and read it for an hour.
When he came out, he looked like he’d aged ten years in sixty minutes.
Callum took it worse.
The forensic accountants, cross-referencing fund flows, flagged an investment account.
Account holder: Callum Aldrich.
Three transfers from the foundation—routed through two intermediary companies—had landed in that account.
Callum was called in by the prosecutor.
“Did you authorize these transfers?”
“I had no idea those transfers existed!”
“But you signed the account opening documents.”
Callum went white. “Mia told me it was a family investment vehicle—some kind of tax-planning structure. I signed where she pointed. I didn’t read the details.”
He trailed off. Couldn’t finish.
His lawyer cleared him eventually. But the prosecutor made it plain: Callum wasn’t innocent. He was the kind of person who trusted blindly and never asked questions, because asking was inconvenient.
He came within an inch of being charged as an accessory.
One inch.
—
Three days after the audit went public, Callum ran into me in the upstairs hallway.
I’d just washed my hair. Holding a cup of yogurt, padding down the hall in socks.
He stopped.
He looked at my forehead. The cut had scabbed over, but the scar was still there—dark, jagged, right above my left eyebrow.
He’d put it there.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
“I’m sorry.”
I looked at him for a few seconds. No particular expression.
Then I walked past him, yogurt in hand, and went back to my room.