Chapter 3 - The Ghost of Geneva
Within forty-eight hours, the modest suburban house I had grown up in was cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape. The local news had picked up the story, plastering my "parents'" smiling faces across every screen under the headline: The Suburbs' Sweethearts Charged in Birthday Poison Plot.
Aunt Mara had moved me to a secure apartment complex downtown, away from the reporters and the neighborhood gossips. The apartment was filled with cardboard boxes, legal pads, and old photo albums that Mara had hidden away for over two decades.
"They didn't just spend the money, Avery," Mara explained on Tuesday morning, handing me a mug of black coffee. She hadn't slept; the dark circles under her eyes looked like bruises. "They used your identity as collateral for international loans. Clara's family—our family—originally owned a major share in a European pharmaceutical firm based in Geneva. When Clara vanished, Richard and Eleanor used your forged signatures, obtained when you turned eighteen under the guise of 'college paperwork,' to transfer those shares to a shell company in the Cayman Islands."
I took a slow sip of the coffee, my chest tightening. My asthma had been acting up since the night of the arrest, a bitter reminder of the physical weakness they had exploited for years. "So, what am I? A penniless fraud with a fake name?"
"No," Mara said firmly, slamming a heavy leather binder onto the table. "You are the key to bringing down their entire syndicate. Clara kept a ledger. A real one. Before they took her, she hid it in a safety deposit box at the Swiss Union Bank in Zurich. Richard and Eleanor have been trying to get their hands on it for years, but the bank requires a DNA match to release it. That's why they couldn't just let you run away. And that's why, once you started asking questions about your medical history last month, they decided it was time to eliminate you."
I looked out the window at the gray Chicago skyline. My whole life, I had felt like an outsider in my own home, punished for existing, treated like a financial burden while they lived comfortably off my stolen bloodline. A cold, hard anger began to take root in my stomach, replacing the fear.
"We're going to Switzerland," I said.
May you like
Mara stared at me, surprised by the sudden iron in my voice. "Avery, the police are still building the case here. If we leave the country—"
"If we stay here, we're sitting ducks for whatever offshore partners they were working with," I interrupted, standing up. "My mother—Clara—left something for me. I'm going to get it. And I'm going to strip Richard and Eleanor of every single thing they stole."
