Chapter 5 - The First File
Helen told her attorney, Naomi Price, to open a sealed archive kept in storage.
Not a dramatic secret vault.
A banker’s box.
Helen had saved documents from Riverside after Victor died.
She never destroyed them because part of her always knew she might someday need to confess.
Inside:
Original bank statements.
Victor’s handwritten payment notes.
Copies of vendor registrations.
And Denise Carter’s memo warning about the missing money three weeks before auditors accused her.
Naomi stared.
“This could support posthumous relief.”
Helen nodded.
“And expose Malcolm.”
“How?”
One vendor from 2004 still existed.
Crestline Textile Services.
Owner today:
Malcolm Ward.
Naomi frowned.
“Why does that matter?”
Helen looked at her.
“Crestline supplies Hawthorne.”
Prison laundry contracts.
Uniforms.
Detergent.
Maintenance textiles.
The company started as one of Victor’s shell vendors.
Twenty-two years later, it held state contracts.
The past was not only inside Helen’s memory.
May you like
![92 The Girl They Called Broke Was a Billionaire’s Daughter—But Her Father’s Arrival Exposed a Secret Powerful People Had Buried for Years]](https://cdn.treeiq.biz/site_590/2026/11/clone-0-0915d882-53d7-4d17-b43a-a010ca1a1068.webp)
It was doing business with the prison holding both women.
---
