The accountant, a quiet man named Arthur who wore thick glasses and smelled like old paper, didn’t take long.

Within 4 days, he called me into his small office.

The desk was piled high with printouts and tax forms, and Arthur looked at me with this pitying expression that made my stomach drop.

“Claire,” he said, tapping a red pen against a spreadsheet.

“Your brother transferred $480,000 out of your father’s estate account within 6 weeks of his death.”

I stared at him.

My brain literally couldn’t process the number.

“What do you mean?” I whispered.

“He moved it directly into his personal account,” Arthur explained, showing me the bank routing numbers.

“He didn’t even try to hide it. He just wrote himself a check from the estate.”

I felt physically sick.

I had to run to the office bathroom and throw up.

All those texts.

All those phone calls where he told me he was working hard with the lawyers.

It was all a lie.

While I was struggling to buy groceries, David had bought a brand new truck.

He bought a boat he named ‘Easy Living.’

And he bought a luxury condo in Tampa, Florida, right on the water.

He had been sending me fake, mocked-up probate statements every single month.

He probably made them on his laptop in 10 minutes while laughing at how gullible I was.

When I finally called him, my hands were shaking so hard I could barely dial.

And that’s when he gave me that smug, awful response.

“Good luck proving it, Claire,” he sneered.

“Dad wanted me to have it anyway. Besides, the statute of limitations on estate disputes is almost up.”

I didn’t know what he meant by that.

But Arthur did.

Arthur explained that in our state, you only have exactly 2 years from the date of the estate’s opening to file a civil claim for estate fraud.

And that 2-year anniversary was exactly 14 days away.

David had been deliberately stringing me along, waiting for the clock to run out.

He knew that if he could just keep me quiet for another 2 weeks, he would be legally in the clear.

He would get to keep the condo, the boat, the truck, and my father’s hard-earned money.