Chapter 12 - Regina’s Version
Regina refused to cooperate for nearly two weeks.
She called the investigation political retaliation.
Called me vindictive.
Called Rachel corrupt.
Called Kayla brainwashed.
Then the financial evidence boxed her in.
Her attorneys changed strategy.
She requested an interview.
I did not attend.
I read the transcript later.
Regina began by blaming her late husband.
According to her, Highland Ridge had been financially unstable for years before he died. He used informal vendor arrangements to move cash. When Regina inherited control, she “continued systems already in place.”
Maybe partly true.
But she expanded them.
Then she blamed Adrian.
“He understood offshore structures.”
Also true.
Then Derrick.
“He volunteered Laura’s father’s information.”
Very likely true.
Then Kayla.
“She wanted a luxury life.”
That one failed almost immediately. No evidence tied Kayla to the scheme before wedding papers.
Finally, when everyone else had been assigned a piece of blame, Regina spoke about me.
“Laura was always suspicious.”
The investigator asked why.
“She thought she was better than us.”
“Because she worked for government?”
“Because she watched people.”
“She’s an auditor.”
Regina reportedly laughed.
“She was a threat the moment Derrick married her.”
There.
Not penniless daughter-in-law.
Not little accountant.
Threat.
The investigator asked about the wedding bathroom.
Regina denied intending medical harm.
“She was walking and talking. I thought she could wait.”
“You knew her water broke.”
“Yes.”
“You knew she was thirty-four weeks pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“You locked the door.”
“For privacy.”
“You told her the baby would not steal Kayla’s spotlight.”
Silence.
“Did you say that?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Regina’s answer chilled me.
“Because for one day, I wanted one thing in that family to happen according to plan.”
One day.
As if my daughter’s premature birth were a scheduling conflict.
Then the investigator asked about the prewritten contingency note:
Laura 34 weeks. Low probability delivery. If event occurs: contain, avoid ambulance scene until transfer.
Regina tried to blame Adrian.
Handwriting analysis later tied the note to her.
That ended the performance.
She admitted writing it.
Not because she expected me to go into labor, she said.
Because she had considered every possible disruption to the $4.8 million transfer.
Including me.
Pregnancy had become an operational risk.
That phrase appeared in another document.
Operational risk.
My daughter, before she was even born, had been reduced to a line in a fraud plan.
When I finished reading the transcript, I closed the folder and sat quietly.
My mother asked, “Do you want to scream?”
“No.”
“Throw something?”
“No.”
“What do you want?”
I looked through the NICU glass.
“Her to grow up.”
Mom smiled sadly.
“Your daughter?”
“Yes.”
“And Regina?”
I thought about it.
“To become irrelevant.”
That was the deepest consequence I could imagine for a woman like her.
Not hatred.
Not revenge.
Irrelevance.
The cases moved.
Adrian negotiated limited cooperation tied to financial charges, though prosecutors reserved judgment on obstruction and evidence destruction.
Derrick’s attorney abandoned the “innocent signatory” defense after the recordings.
Regina faced fraud, conspiracy, evidence-related allegations, unlawful confinement-related conduct connected to the bathroom, and potential obstruction.
Detective Nolan faced his own public-corruption inquiry.
Kayla filed to annul her marriage to Adrian based on fraud and concealment.
She came to the NICU one afternoon and stood beside my daughter’s incubator.
“Can I ask something?”
“Yes.”
“Do you hate me?”
“No.”
She stared at me.
“Why not?”
“Because evidence doesn’t say you locked the door.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“But I laughed at you for years.”
“That’s different.”
“Still wrong.”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
There was something healthy in not rushing to comfort her.
Accountability did not require cruelty.
But it did require discomfort.
Then Kayla smiled faintly at the baby.
“What did you name her?”
I had waited.
Not because Derrick deserved input.
Because I wanted the name to belong to a life rather than a crisis.
“Hope,” I said.
Kayla started crying.
“Of course you did.”
I looked at my daughter.
“No,” I said softly. “Not because of what happened.”
“Then why?”
“Because my father used to say hope is only useful if you build something under it.”
May you like
That afternoon, Hope breathed without supplemental oxygen for the first time.
And I realized the family I was losing had never been the family she needed.
