The call came just after sunrise, and Dominique’s name on the screen made my stomach tighten. She was crying before I could speak. “Mom died last night,” she said, claiming a heart attack at the nursing home and insisting everything—including the house—was left to her. She even warned me not to come to the funeral.
I stood on a patio overlooking the Atlantic, phone in hand, while my mother—very much alive—moved calmly through her morning routine beside me. Six months earlier, Dominique had secretly placed her in a care facility, forged my signature, and painted herself as the devoted daughter. The truth was simpler: she wanted the house.
As Dominique piled on lies—immediate cremation, a “verbal will,” final words that excluded me—I put the call on speaker. My mother listened, betrayal flickering across her face before hard resolve settled in. She gave me a single nod.
Permission.
I ended the call calmly, letting my sister believe she’d won. As a forensic accountant, I knew what came next. Dominique thought she’d buried our mother.
Instead, she’d handed us proof.
By Friday, the truth would be waiting for her—alive, documented, and impossible to deny.
