“That will be difficult to argue, Mr. Blackwood, considering your wife gave the bank, the state auditor, and law enforcement a complete timeline of your embezzlement from Blackwood Charitable Trust.”
Margaret went white.
The trust had been her crown jewel: charity luncheons, hospital wings, scholarship dinners, her name engraved on plaques across Charleston. Ethan managed the accounts. Ethan praised himself for generosity. Ethan stole from children’s medical grants and funneled the money into shell vendors, gambling debts, and weekend trips with a woman named Lauren Pierce.
I had found the first false invoice in January.
By February, I had found twenty-three.
By March, I knew about Lauren.
