Melinda’s POV
I started with the check.
$200,000.
Issued from Holt & Moore Family Holdings.
Margot had written it herself — dated July 19, 2011. The memo line read simply: “Settlement.”
There was a name, scrawled just below the signature:
Rachel Greene.
I didn’t recognize it. Not from my past. Not from the legal fights. Not from Andrew’s world. That, more than anything, told me it was real.
Because real threats never make it into the narrative.
They’re handled quietly.
Erased.
Bought off.
And sometimes… buried.
I ran her name through everything.
Public records.
Birth databases.
Court filings.
Archived directories.
Rachel Greene had once lived in Encino.
A two-bedroom rental, leased under her name from 2009 to 2012.
Then… nothing.
No obituary.
No marriage certificate.
