It was the calm before the storm.
Then the storm arrived.
It started with a letter, not to me, but to them.
The state revenue department opened an official investigation into my father’s business practices.
Apparently, the journalist had done more digging than I realized, and the documents I provided had made their way into the hands of people who had the power to act.
Tyler called me the day my parents got the notice.
“You should have seen Dad’s face,” he said. “He opened it right at breakfast. Went pale as a ghost. Mom kept asking, ‘What is it?’ And he just kept saying, ‘It’s nothing. It’s a mistake.’”
But it wasn’t nothing.
Over the next few weeks, they were audited.
Every account, every reimbursement, every dollar that had conveniently vanished into family members’ pockets.
Melissa got pulled into it, too, since several checks had gone straight to her account.
