Page 12 of Drowning in Lies

"No, I think that's fine," he agreed, sighing heavily.

"Thank you. Would you also be willing to give us access to your financial records, both joint and individual accounts? Again, it will just speed up the process but we can subpoena them if necessary."

I frowned, not sure I wanted them to have all of that information. Chris picked up on my facial expression.

"I agree that this situation needs closer inspection, but given the number of accounts and investments, and the level of wealth involved, I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable with allowing such a broad search. I would like a few minutes to speak with Lila privately."

Without waiting for a reply, Chris took my elbow and guided me out of the room. We ended up out on back deck, to be sure we were out of earshot.

"First of all...are you OK? That's a lot of shit you've been hit with."

"No, I'm not but I can't even think about that right now. What kinds of things are they looking for with the financial stuff? Why do they need all of the accounts?"

"They want their forensic accounting people to follow the money trail to try to find out why David was paying Scott, where the money was coming from, what it was being used for. I've got to be honest, Lila, it sounds like David was paying Scott off for something. Maybe he found about the affair and threatened to tell you?"

"I just don't know what to think. Why would they have gotten along so well if Scott was blackmailing him?"

"I don't know what to think aboutanyof this, Lila. I would never have thought...I'm just so damned sorry, honey. If Sherry and I had even the slightest inkling that David was cheating on you, we would have told you."

I nodded. "I know. He had us all fooled, obviously."

"So, how do you want to handle the request for financial records?"

"Well, I'm concerned about letting them poke around in all of my accounts. David's accounts or our joint accounts? Yes, by all means, they can look all they want. But I don't like the idea of them having access to my trust fund information or the inheritance from my mom. That's all in separate investment accounts that David didn't have access to."

"That sounds reasonable and I'm fine with offering that for now, but if they find any serious discrepancies, or anything to indicate that David and Scott got to those accounts as well, theywillbe able to get a judge to sign off on a court order allowing them access ."

I grimaced, and Chris noticed, of course. His career relied on him reading body language. "If there is something you haven't told me, I need you to tell me now.”

Chapter 6: The Flanagans

"Nothing related to any of this, I promise. It's just...look, my mom and dad came from wealthy families, and that wealth wasn't always from...strictlylegalsources on mom's side." He just stared at me, waiting for me to continue.

"My mom never had anything to do with it. Her parents shielded her from that side of things growing up. After my dad was killed in the car accident when I was a kid, my grandparents worked even harder to distance my mom from the family, at least in public. I've barely seen any of them since my dad died. My mom assured me that the money from my trust fund came from the legal side of things and that it had been routed through various accounts so that any ties to her family were erased, but I don't know that for sure. If the police dig too hard into the original source of the trust fund money, it might not be pretty. I would really like to reach out to my uncle or cousins to make sure it's safe before I agree to it."

Chris stared at me slack-jawed before giving a nervous chuckle. "It sounds like you're taking about the mafia, honey," he joked.

"No, the Mob," I corrected matter-of-factly. "They're Sicilian. We're Irish. There's a difference."

"Holy fuck, are you kidding me?" he asked in an incredulous whisper-shout.

"Why would I kid about something like this?" I huffed, rolling my eyes.

"You mean to tell me that our sweet little Lila is aMob princess?" I could tell he still wasn't quite sure if I was being serious.

I rolled my eyes again. "Hardly. I'm Mob-adjacent at best. The Family is very much a patriarchy, so my mom wasn't in line for the throne. Leadership passed down to her brother when her father died. My dad's family had some legit business interests with Mom's family. They met and fell in love, and with everyone's blessing, my dad pulled out of everything even remotely associated with the Flanagan's to keep her safe.

"Flanagan?" He asked, eyes going even wider. He ran his fingers through his hair. "Fucking hell, Lila, Patrick Flanagan - the 'King of Chicago' - is youruncle???" He couldn't have looked more shocked if I'd hit him with a brick.

"Yes. Now do you see why I want to double check with his people that it's OK to have the cops poking around my family's money?"

"Well...shit. OK then, we'll offer to authorize access to David's accounts plus the joint accounts you had. That will buy you some time to contact whoever you need to. I don't need to know who that is, nor do I want to know who that is, by the way. Donotcontact them from any phone or email account associated with you or David. Buy a burner phone. Actually, I'll have Sherry go out to buy one after Horton leaves."

"Thanks Chris. I'm sorry to drag you guys into this mess."

"Not your fault, honey. None of this is your fault."

We went back into the dining room and Detective Horton was pleased when I signed the authorizations for him to access David's accounts as well as our joint accounts. He accepted Chris's reasoning for denying access to the other accounts but did remind us that they may still need to access the rest if they uncover any red flags.

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