Chapter 9
That fact changed Claudia.
Her lawyer requested a separate meeting.
Richard did not attend.
Miriam did.
Claudia admitted she knew about fake childcare invoices.
But she claimed Mark had already created the system before they married.
He told her it was temporary.
He said Richard had always used family money informally and nobody cared as long as accounts balanced eventually.
Claudia helped continue it.
Then Summit Crest deteriorated.
Debt increased.
Mark became frantic.
“He said Noah’s expenses were the only money his father never questioned,” Claudia told Miriam.
When Miriam repeated the sentence to Richard, he closed his eyes.
It was true.
Richard questioned hotel linen costs.
Construction materials.
Wine inventories.
Vehicle leases.
But anything with Noah’s name?
Approve it.
Emily’s death had made him feel helpless.
Money was the one thing he knew how to provide without being asked to sit beside grief.
Mark recognized the weakness.
And used it.
Claudia did not become sympathetic because of that.
She had still withheld meals as punishment.
Returned Noah’s clothes.
Helped isolate him.
Shoved him barefoot into snow.
But her motive became clearer.
Mark had repeatedly told her their financial problems were caused by Noah’s special needs.
At the same time, he used Noah’s supposed needs to move money elsewhere.
Claudia grew to resent a child for expenses the child was never receiving.
She chose cruelty.
Mark supplied the lie that fed it.
Meanwhile Noah returned to Chicago with Richard under an interim safety arrangement while the investigation continued.
He slept in a guest room at Richard’s Gold Coast residence.
The first week, he hid pieces of bread inside a toy box.
Richard found them while putting away blocks.
He carried the bread downstairs without mentioning it.
Then he called the child therapist recommended by Noah’s pediatrician.
“Why would he hide food?”
“Because at some point he learned food might not always be available when he wanted or needed it.”
Richard looked toward the ceiling.
He had approved invoices for a private nutrition consultant.
Noah had been saving bread.
That contradiction destroyed whatever remained of Richard’s desire to protect Mark from consequences.
But the biggest question still remained.
The boxes shipped to Colorado.
The sold townhouse.
The Arizona lease.
Mark’s remark:
You were going to end up taking him anyway.
Miriam finally obtained records from the moving company.
The shipment instructions had been changed three days before the birthday.
Originally, Noah’s boxes were going somewhere else.
May you like
Richard read the original destination.
His own Chicago residence.
