The Gold Digger Story
Chapter 06 - The Gold Digger Story
By noon the next day, half the city had heard Walter's version.
I was the unstable daughter of a disgraced contractor.
I had married the Holloway heir.
I had discovered old claims against the company.
Then, according to an anonymous "family source," I threatened to destroy the Holloways unless they paid me.
It was almost elegant.
Walter took the ugliest pieces of my life and arranged them into a story people already knew how to believe.
Poor woman.
Rich husband.
Money.
By evening, the charity hospital where I volunteered had removed my photograph from its donor page.
A local lifestyle blog posted an old picture of Grant and me beneath the headline:
HOLLOWAY MARRIAGE IN CRISIS.
Rose wanted me to sue everyone.
I wanted to sleep for a year.
Then my bank card stopped working.
Walter had not frozen my personal checking account.
He could not.
But the savings account Grant and I shared was controlled through a family trust structure I had never fully understood.
That humiliation was my fault.
I had signed papers because my husband told me the lawyers handled everything.
Trust.
Again.
Grant came to Rose's house after dark.
She met him on the porch with a baseball bat.
He looked almost offended.
"Is that necessary?"
Rose leaned on it.
"Depends how much you resemble your father tonight."
I should not have laughed.
I did.
Grant heard me through the screen door.
For a moment, we were ourselves again.
Then I remembered room twelve.
I stepped outside.
"I transferred money into your personal account," he said.
"I sent it back."
"Lena."
"I don't want rescue money."
"It's our money."
"Your father froze it."
Grant looked ashamed.
"I didn't know he could."
"That's the problem, Grant. You never know what he can do until he does it to someone you love."
He flinched.
Good.
He needed to.
Then Grant handed me a page.
Not a check.
Not a legal file.
An address.
"Who lives there?" I asked.
"Earl Bennett."
My heart started pounding.
"He's alive?"
"Seventy-four. Retired. Lives two towns over."
I looked at Grant.
"How did you find him?"
"I started asking questions."
"Why?"
His answer came quietly.
"Because I finally realized I should have asked them before you had to walk six miles home in the rain."
It was the apology I had wanted.
May you like
It was also too late.
But I took the address.
