Chapter 9
The forensic accountant found something within six days.
Evelyn had not stolen from Caleb.
She had done something subtler.
For years, Dominic allowed her to use a family expense account for household needs.
The account was supposed to cover property upkeep, security, medical costs, and family events.
Evelyn repeatedly coded personal spending as expenses related to Tyler.
Tutoring that never happened.
Travel described as “minor dependent support.”
Clothing.
Club fees.
Luxury purchases.
The amounts were not enough to destroy Dominic financially.
But the pattern mattered.
Tyler had become a financial category.
A favored grandchild whose name justified spending.
Then the accountant found two payments submitted under Caleb’s name.
Dominic went cold.
“What for?”
Private pediatric consultations.
They never occurred.
Both payments went to a research firm.
Not medical research.
Genealogical research.
Laura stared at the invoices.
“Your mother paid someone using Caleb’s support category to investigate whether he was yours?”
The accountant corrected her.
“Not exactly.”
Dominic looked up.
“What does that mean?”
“The firm does family-history and asset research. Their engagement letter did not request a paternity investigation.”
“What did it request?”
The accountant slid over a copy.
Review historical Marino family beneficiary structures and identify circumstances under which collateral descendants may become primary heirs.
Collateral descendants.
Tyler.
Dominic felt the pieces tighten.
Evelyn had been studying inheritance rules long before the hospital confrontation.
Then came another document.
A memo from the research firm warned Evelyn that Dominic’s acknowledged paternity and active parenting relationship with Caleb made any attempt to displace the child legally unrealistic.
The memo was dated sixteen months earlier.
Dominic read it twice.
Sixteen months.
Meaning Evelyn had known long before Laura’s DNA test that even successful biological doubt would not automatically erase Caleb’s place.
Yet she continued the campaign anyway.
That made no sense if inheritance was the sole motive.
Laura noticed the same thing.
“She knew this wouldn’t work.”
Dominic nodded.
“So why keep doing it?”
May you like
The answer would come in Part 10.
And it would change who Dominic believed his mother had really been trying to manipulate.
