Chapter 1 - ASHES IN THE KITCHEN
At 3:06 in the morning, a call shattered my life. Someone had broken into Copper Table, the catering kitchen I spent twelve years building with blood, sweat, and savings from my forensic accounting firm. When my husband, Joel, and I arrived, the place was ruined: stainless-steel tables flipped, walk-in coolers smashed, and red spray paint on the wall reading, SELFISH DAUGHTERS DIE ALONE. Four days earlier, my father, Douglas Hale, had stood on my porch demanding I liquidate Copper Table to pay off my golden-child sister Briana’s sudden one-million-dollar debt. I refused. Briana had spent her youth living a fabricated "lifestyle influencer" life bankrolled by my parents, while I worked sixty-hour weeks. When the responding officer asked who did it, I pointed to the cloud-synced security cameras. I knew exactly who had entered: my own parents. But what they didn't realize was that I was an investigator by trade, and their reign of manipulation had just run into cold, hard numbers.
